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W.8c R.CHAMBERS— LIMITED 

LONDON e. EDINBURGH 

THE BRADLEY-GARRETSON GO.-LIMITED 

PHILADELPHIA DETROIT BRANTFORD 



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GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

Photogravure from the unfinished painting by Stuart. 






X 



LIBRARY of ^iONGRESS 
fwu Sopies rfecetved 

APR 19 iyo5 

COPY a. 



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PREFACE. 



This volume lias been devoted primarily to a 
sketch of the political development of the United 
States of America in this century. This has been 
done for two reasons. First, the contributions made 
/ the United States to tJie art, the letters, the sci- 
'.ce, the industries of the century, have been fully 
alt with in other volumes of this series. Second- 
/, although the history of the growth of the Re- 
public is marvellous, and altliough the culture-his- 
tory of its people is interesting, prime importance 
attaches to the history of the great experiment in 
self-government made by the American democracy. 
Without American inventiveness and energy the cen- 
tury would not have made such marked advance, yet 
it would still have been the age of steam and electric- 
ity. But without the American experiment in self- 
government the world would have been left without 
some of the most important of all the political lessons 
it has ever been taught. The value, for example, of 
the lesson taught by the democracy when it grappled 
with and overcame slavery cannot be overestimated. 
Such lessons can be understood, however, only after 
the outlines of the nation's political history hav^e been 
mastered ; and hence it is that the attempt has been 
made to give such outlines rather than to present a 

V 



?5^ 



Vi PREFACE. 

full account of the physical, the mental, and moral 
growth of the nation — topics which nevertheless have 
not been overlooked. 

It is almost needless to say that many books have 
been consulted during the preparation of the volume. 
An endeavour has been made to mention either in the 
text or in a note the chief authorities that have been 
relied upon, but naturally it has been impossible to 
include them all. Here it seems fair to say that for 
recent years the well-known work of Dr. E. B. 
Andrews has been very helpful, while for the ante- 
bellum period Mr. James Schouler's five volumes 
have been invaluable. 



W. P. TRENT. 



The University of the South, 
Sewanee, Tenn., U.S.A. 



CONTENTS. 



PART ONE. 

THE KISE OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE IN 1801. 

PAOU 

Area and Population. — Distribution of Population. — Gen- 
eral Characteristics of the People. — New England. — 
The Middle States.— The South.— The Frontiersmen.— 
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Primitive Life of 
the Citizens.— The Outlook 1 

CHAPTER II. 

THE NEVV^ REGIME. 

Disputed Election of 1801. — Jeflferson's Inaugural, — 
John Adams's Fears for the Future. — Sketch of Jef- 
ferson. — His General Policy. — His Attitude tovs'ard the 
Civil Service. — The Barbary War. — Results of the First 
Year of the Revolution of 1801 10 

CHAPTER III. 

DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 

The Louisiana Purchase. — Jeflferson's Constitutional Scru- 
ples. — Federalist Opposition. — Election of 1804. — The 
Yazoo Question. — John Randolph's Fall from Power. — 
The Impeachment and Trial of Justice Chase. — End 
of the War with Tripoli.— The Rule of 1756.— Impress- 
ment Abuses. — Abortive Diplomacy. — Burr's Conspir- 
acy and Trial.— Prohibition of the Foreign Slave Trade. 30 

vii 



viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE WAR OF 1812. 

PA»B 

Rejection of the Monroe-Pinckney Treaty. — Leopard and 
Chesapeake. — Orders in Council. — Berlin and Milan De- 
crees. — The Embargo. — Election of 1808.— Madison's 
Policy. — Opposition in New England. — Retirement of 
Jefferson. — Sketch of Madison. — Erskine Disavowed. — 
Napoleon's Sharp Practice. — Growth of the War Spirit. 
— Madison Yields. — War Declared. — Its Untimeliness. 
— Abortive Invasion of Canada. — Naval Victories. — 
Election of 1812.— Detroit Retaken. — Andrew Jackson 
and the Creeks. — Political Mismanagement of the War. 
— Prospects of Peace. — Capture and Burning of Wash- 
ington. — Bad Financiering. — Battle of New Orleans. — 
Treaty of Ghent 61 

CHAPTER V. 

EFFECTS OF THE WAR, 

The Hartford Convention. — Gallatin's Loans. — Cost of 
the War. — Growth of National Spirit. — Impetus to 
Manufacturing. — Protection and Sectional Differ- 
ences.— The New National Bank.— The Tariff of 1816.— 
Election of 1816. — Madison Opposes Internal Improve- 
ments Undertaken by Congress. — Monroe's Inaugural. 
— The Virginian Presidents. — Monroe's Cabinet 76 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 

Relations with Spain.— Jackson in Florida. — Monroe 
Smoothes Matters Out —Sketch of Jackson. — The . 
Treaty of 1819.— The Slavery Question.— The Missouri 
Compromises. — Discussion of the Controversy.— Affairs 
of the National Bank.— Election of 1820. — Political 
Factions. — Internal Improvements Vetoed. — Recogni- 
tion of Spanish-American Republics.— The " Monroe 
Doctrine." — Scope of the " Doctrine." — Congress and 
the Greeks. — Growing Demand for Protection. — Tariff 
of 1824.— Election of 1824 91 



CONTENTS. ii 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 

PAGE 

A Hampered Administration. — Internal Improvements. — 
The Panama Congress. — Georgia and the Indians. — 
Deaths of .Jefferson and John Adams. — Abortive For- 
eign Policy. — Intrigues for the Presidency. — "The 
Tariff of Abominations." — The South Protests. — Elec- 
tion of 1828. — Formation of New Parties 119 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A generation's advance. 

Distribution of Population in 1810. — Standing of States 
and Cities. — Area and Population in 1820. — In 1830. — 
Character of Population in the Various Sections. — 
Homogeneity of Stock. — Growth of the National Spirit. 
— Economic Impetus. — Early Railroads. — Inventions. — 
Spiritual and Mental Awakening. — Schools and Col- 
leges.-^Democracy in the South and West. — Esthetic 
and Literary Development. — Provincial and Prosaic 
Traits.— The Next Generation's Task 188 



PART TWO. 

THE STRUGGLE WITH SLAVERY. 



CHAPTER IX. 

"THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON." 

Jackson's Inauguration. — Introduction of the "Spoils 
System." — The Eaton Scandal. — Reorganisation of the 
Cabinet. — The " Kitchen Cabinet." — Jackson's Policy. 
— Georgia and the Indians Once More. — Career of Chief 
Justice Marshall. — States' Rights. — The Webster- 
Hayne Debate. — Jackson's Toast. — Tlie Tariff of 1832. — 
The Ordinance of Nullification. — Jackson Stands Firm. 
— The Final Compromise. — Character of the NuUifiers. 146 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 

PAGS 

Jackson's Successful Foreign Policy. — Attack on the 
National Bank. — Clay's Mistake. — Jackson's Veto. — 
Election of 1833. — Renewed Attack on the Bank. — 
Withdrawal of the Deposits. — Resolutions of Censure 
Pass the Senate. — Financial Disturbances. — The " Spe- 
cie Circular." — Growth of Abolitionism. — Incendiary 
Literatui-e. — Southern Indignation. — "Gag-laws" in 
Congress. — Adams's New Role. — Election of 1836. — 
Sketch of Van Buren.— Panic of 1837.— The Sub-Treas- 
ury System. — Popular Indignation against the Demo- 
crats. — The Seminole War. — Squabbles in Congress. — 
Election of 1840 162 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 

Death of President Harrison. — Haphazard Methods of 
Choosing Vico-Pi'esidents. — Sketch of Tyler. — The Whig 
Programme. — Tyler's Bank Vetoes. — Tariff of 1842. — 
Largess to the States. — The Ashburton Treaty. — Polit- 
ical Confusion. — Early Stages of the Texas Question. 
— The North Opposes Annexation. — Tyler's Overtures to 
Texas. — The Accident on the Princeton. — Calhoun 
Becomes Secretary of State.— The Treaty of Annex- 
ation Rejected. — Van Buren and Clay in a Dilemma. — 
Election of 1844.— Dorr's Rebellion in Rhode Island. — 
Texas Admitted by Joint Resolution.— An Unjustifiable 
Procedure 188 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE MEXICAN WAR. 

Character of Polk's Administration.— The Oregon Ques- 
tion Settled. — Negotiations Broken with Mexico. — 
Taylor on the Rio Grande.— War Declared.— Taylor's 
Victories.— California Taken.— PoUc's Troubles with 
Congress.— The Wilmot Proviso.— Democratic Efforts to 
Secure Military Heroes.— Scott's Campaign.— Capture 



CONTENTS. xi 

PAAE 

of the City of Mexico.— Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo. 
— Death of John Quincy Adams.— Discussions as to 
Free or Slave Status of the New Possessions. — Election 
of 1848 205 

CHAPTER Xni. 

THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. 

Pro-slavery Aggressiveness.— Growth of Anti-slavery 
Views at the North. — Taylor's Policy with Regard to 
the New Possessions. — Discovery of Gold in California. 
— The Mormons in Utah. — Clay and Webster Oppose 
Taylor. — Debates in the Senate. — Clay's Proposals. — 
Death of Taylor. — Estimate of his Character. — Web- 
ster's Seventh of March Speech. — Calhoun's Last Speech 
and Death. — Fillmore Becomes President, — Clay's Pro- 
gramme Carried Through.— The Fugitive Slave Law. . . 219 

CHAPTER XIV. 

CALM AND STORM. 

Period of Political Repose. — Filibustering Expeditions.— 
Mississippi Campaign of 1851. — Election of 1852. — Deaths 
of Clay and Webster. — The Martin Koszta Affair. — 
Senator Douglas. — The Kansas-Nebraska Bill. — " Squat- 
ter Sovereignty." — Pierce's Support Gained. — The Case 
of Anthony Burns. — The Gadsden Purchase. — Bom- 
bai'dment of Greytown. — The Ostend Manifesto. — Col- 
lapse of the Whig Partj'. — Republicans and Know- 
Nothings. — "Bleeding Kansas." — Brooks's Attack on 
Sumner. — Election of 1856. — Improvement in Kansas. — 
Walker's Filibustering Exploits. — Forecast of Events.. 233 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 

The Dred Scott Decision. — Buchanan's Cabinet. — The Le 
Compton Constitution. — Trouble with the Mormons. — 
Sketch of Lincoln. — The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. — 
Buchanan's Wild Message. — John Brown's Raid. — The 



xii CONTENTS. 

PAOK 

Covada Investigation. — Split Among the Democrats.— 
The Republicans Nominate Lincoln, — Election of 1860. 
— Southern Reasons for Secession. — South Carolina 
Acts. — Buchanan's Irresolution. — His Cabinet Reor- 
ganised. — Formation of the Southern Confederacy. — 
ElTorta to Preserve Peace. — The Situation in March, 
1860 256 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE COUNTRY AND THE SECTIONS ON THE EVE OF THE 
CIVIL WAR. 

Population in 1840. — Filling in the Waste Places. — Status 
of the Sections. — Area and Population in 1850. — Status 
of the Sections. — Urban Growth. — Area and Popula- 
tion in 1860. — Status of the Sections. — Foreign Element 
of the Population. — ^The Negroes. — Proportionate Mil- 
itary Efficiency of North and South. — Intensification 
of Types. — The Macrocosm of 1860. — Manufacturing. — 
Farming. — Railroads. — Telegraph Lines. — Inventions. 
— Science and Literature. — Backwardness of the South. 278 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE CIVIL WAR. 

Lincoln's Inaugural. — His Cabinet. — Sumter Fired on. — 
Call for Troops. — The Border States.— Campaigns in 
Virginia. — Partition of Virginia. — First Battle of Ma- 
nassas.— England's Attitude. — Federal Success in the 
South-West.— Vicksburg Surrenders.— The Virginia 
and the Monitor. — Southern Ports Blockaded.— Seven 
Days' Fighting Around Richmond.— Second Manassas. 
— Antietam.— The Proclamation of Emancipation.— 
Fredericksburg.- Chancellorville.- Gettysburg.— Con- 
scription North and South.— Federal Victories Around 
Chattanooga.— Sherman Takes Atlanta. — His March to 
the Sea. — Grant and Lee in Virginia in 1864.- Siege of 
Petersburg. — Surrender at Appomattox. — Political 
Events in the South.— At Washington. — The Case of 
Vallandingham.— Election of 1864.— -Assassination of 
Lincoln.— Results of the War 294 



CONTENTS. xiii 

PART THREE. 

THE ERA OF INDUSTRIALISM. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

RECONSTRUCTION. 

PAas 

Lincoln's Plans for Reconstiniction. — Character of An- 
drew Johnson. — His Attitude toward the South. — 
Repressive Legislation Against the Blacks. — Partisan- 
ship and Ignorance. — Radical Measures in Congress. — 
Johnson's Lack of Facts. — The Fourteenth Amend- 
ment. — The People Side with Congress. — Tenure of 
Office Act. — Reconstruction Acts. — Results of Military- 
Rule. — " Carpet-baggers and Scalawags." — The Ku- 
Klux Klan. — Impeachment and Trial of Johnson. — The 
French in Mexico. — Purchase of Alaska. — The Alabama 
Claims.— Election of 1868 816 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE RESTORATION OF UNITY. 

Character of Grant. — Financial Corruption. — Grant Un- 
able to Cope with the Evils of the Time. — The Tweed 
Ring. — Outrages in the South. — Fraudulent Elections, 
— Use of Troops at the Polls. — Election of 1872. — Civil 
Service Reform.— Good Financial Legislation. — Scheme 
for Annexing San Domingo. — Election of 1876. — Elec- 
toral Commission Seats Hayes. — Troops Withdrawn 
from the South. — Centennial Exposition. — Massacre of 
Custer's Command. — Progress of the Period 335 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 

Alternation of Party Success. — Defects of the Two-Farty 
System. — Tariff and Free Silver Issues.— Hayes a Good 
Administrator. — Resumption of Specie Payments. — ^The 
Bland-Allison Bill. — Halifax Award. — The Struggleover 
" Riders."— Strikers and "Molly McGuires."— Election 



xiv CONTENTS. 

PADS 

of 1880.— Garfield Offends Conkling.— Defeat of the 
Latter. — Garfield Assassinated. — Cliaracter of President 
Arthur. — Civil Service Commission. — Foreign Affairs. 
— Chinese Exclusion Bills. — Kearneyism in California. 
—Election of 1884.— The " Mugwumps " Defeat Blaine. 353 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE TARIFF TO THE FRONT. 

Opposition to Cleveland. — He Yields to the Spoilsmen. — 
Interstate Commerce Act and Other Measures. — The 
'Jii^r&go Anarchists. — Cleveland's Tariff Message. — 
E^ecti'^- of 1888.— Election Frauds.— The Sackville-West 
Incident. — Pan-Anierican Congress. — The Chilian Im- 
broglio.— Lynching oi lidl^'ans in New Orleans, — 
eaker Read as " Czar," — Defeat of the Lodge Bill. — 
The McKinley T«-iff. — TheSherman Act.— Labour Agi- 
tations.— Election of 1893 376 

CHAPTER XXII. 

FlJ\ un. SI&CLE. 

Cleveland's Break with his Party. — The Hawaiian Ques- 
tion.— The World's Fair.— Panic of 1893.— Repeal of 
Purchasing Clause of Sherman Act. — xhe Wilson 
Tariff. — Cleveland Puts Down the Chicago Strikers. — 
His Policy toward Cuba. — The Venezue. ^ Message. — 
Corruption in New York City. — Election or 1896. — Free 
Silver. — The Dingley Tariff. — Destruction of the Maitte. 
— The Spanish- American War. — Rapprochement with 
Great Britain. — Loyalty of the South. — Prowess of the 
Navy. — Bad Management of the War on Land. — The 
Treaty of Paris. — Expansion. — Fighting in the Philip- 
pines.— The Outlook 394 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

PRESENT AND FUTURE, 

Population in 1870,— Standing of States and Cities.- Pop- 
ulation in 1880.— In 1890.— Rank of Sections and 



CONTENTS. XV 

PAOS 

States. — Great Urban Developinent. — Influx of Foreign- 
ers. — The Negro Problem. — Interstate Migration. — 
Government Employees. — Wage Earners in General. — 
Educational Statistics. — Standing of the United States 
among the Nations. — Relative Standing of tlie Sections. 
— Intensity of Modern Life. — Growth of Corporate 
Power. — Mental Development 415 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

CONCLUSION. 

Comparative Success of the Democratic Experiment. — 
Devotion of the American to his Government. — Changes 
in the Democratic Ideal. — American Over-confidence. 
— Waste of Resources. — Defects of the Governmental 
System. — No Cause for Pessimism. — American Destiny 
in the Hands of the People Working under the Guid- 
ance of Providence 4:^3 



APPENDIX A. 

The Constitution op the United States 441 

APPENDIX B, 

The Presidents and Vice-Presidents, with their 
Terms of Office 457 

APPENDIX C. 

The States and Territories, with Dates of Admission, 
Areas, and Populations in lyOO 459 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Facing Page 

George Washington frontispiece 

Theodore Koosevelt 1 

John C. Calhoun 51 

Henry Chiy 1(52 

Daniel Webster 219 

James G. Blaine 376 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

Photogravure from a photograph. 



PROGEESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF 
AMERICA IN THE CENTURY. 



PART ONE. 

THE EISE OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE IN 1801. 

At the opening of the nineteenth century the terri- 
tory comprised in the United States of America was 
exactly the same as had been determined by the 
Treaty of Paris with Great Britain in 1783. On the 
north the British possessions formed a boundary to 
be disputed for many years. On the west, beyond 
the Mississippi River, stretched vast tracts claimed 
by Spain, but really possessed by the bison and the 
Indian. On the south an artificial line set off a nar- 
row strip alone; the Gulf of jMexico together with the 
peninsula of Florida as additional and more securely 
held possessions of the Spanish throne. To the east 
alone a free outlet was offered to the energy of the 
new nation by the broad Atlantic, on which many a 

1 



4 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

1801 ? This question can be best answered after 
some concrete facts about them have been given. Ex- 
cluding the settlers bevond the Alleghanies, we find 
about 2,700,000 people living in New England and 
the Middle States; 2,200,000 living in the South. 
About 1,000,000 of these inhabitants were slaves, 
the proportion held in the Southern States being as 
nine to one. Virginia was the most populous of the 
States, a position which she held until 1820, when the 
primacy passed to Xew York, Massachusetts came 
next, but was really more prosperous than Virginia, 
since she had few negroes and not a single slave with- 
in her borders. Vermont alone equalled her in this 
latter particular, but all the other Northern States 
save New Jersey had passed laws looking to emanci- 
pation. The last-named State fell in with the gen- 
eral tendency in a very few years, and it was quite 
apparent that slavery was doomed in the colder re- 
gions of the country. That it would, however, hold 
its ovni tenaciously in the Far South was proved by 
the fact that in South Carolina there were over twice 
as many negroes as whites. 

From the nature of tlieir labour supply it could bo 
at once inferred that the inhabitants of the Southern 
States were a people devoted to agriculture; but 
such an inference would have been equally true of 
the inhabitants of the Middle States. Here and 
there in the latter region and in New England a few 
mills had been set up — particularly for spinning 
eotton yarn — but as a rule agriculture was the staple 
pursuit of the entire country, save in New England, 
Avhere commerce and the fisheries made amends for 
that ruggedness of the soil that was already encourag- 
ing a westward emigration. It is little exaggera- 
tion, then, to say that the Americans in 1801 were a 



THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE IN 1801. 5 

nation of farmers; but already a single circumstance 
— Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin — had pre- 
pared the way for the subsequent broad division of 
tlie Atlantic region into the manufacturing ISTortk 
and the planting South. Later on the farming West 
was to emerge into great prominence ; but it was to 
be many years before Mother Earth would be made 
to yield the most valuable of her treasures in the 
shape of ores, coal, and oil. 

That it was a nation of farmers that had won their 
independence and established a prosperous republic 
was further proved by the fact that only 3.97 per 
cent, of the population lived an urban life.* In 
1890 the percentage was 29.20. There were only five 
towns with 20,000 inhabitants and upwards : Phila- 
delphia with 70,000 ; :N'ew York with 60,000 ; Balti- 
more with 26,000 ; Boston with 24,000 ; Charleston 
Avith 20,000. About seventeen other places, perhaps, 
A\-ere worthy of being called small towns. Xew 
York was most like a city in its liveliness ; 
but Philadelphia, warned doubtless by the yellow 
fever epidemics of 1793 and 1797, had done most 
in the way of sanitation, and with its lighted 
and paved streets and its public institutions 
strove to keep up its prestige as the adopted city of 
Franklin and, to the close of the century, the tem- 
]iorary capital of the Union. Like Boston, however, 
it was a slow, prim place, and in some particulars 
Avas less of an urban centre than Charleston, which 
Avas the London of South Carolina, being the resort 
at certain seasons of the stately planters. f 

* About 5 per cent, perhaps if the term " urban " be given 
a Hberal application. 

\ Jefferson, in a letter of Sept. 23. 1800, Avrote : " The yellow 
fever will discourage the growth of great cities in our na- 



6 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Life, then, was simple iu the towns and doubly so 
in the country. Theatres were struggling for ex- 
istence ; newspapers were small, rather uninfluential 
sheets; travellers consumed many days in journey- 
ing by stage over bad roads between important 
points ; inns were bad, indeed hardly attainable in 
the South ; the postal service was in its infancy ; fire 
companies were just as primitive — but after all we 
must remember that the age of steam had not quite 
dawned and that the Atlantic coast was almost as 
much a frontier of Europe as the Alleghanies were of 
the Atlantic coast. Besides there was not a little solid 
comfort in the life led by the citizen or the farmer. 
The rush of modern competition did not disturb him ; 
there was plenty of work to do in a new land full of 
natural wealth; the pressure of caste was not upon 
him, even if there was an aristocracy of birth and 
education in jSTew England and of birth and land in 
the South. lie was sturdy and self-reliant; he had 
a modest Avife willing to work and bear him many 
children; he was honest and so did not care whether 
the penal code Avere barbarous or not ; he was not a 
theorist and so did not care particularly for the full 
religious liberty barely just attained by the Virgin- 
ian, or for pure and simple manhood suffrage which 
existed in but few States. He was happy in his 
ignorance of Old World luxury and vice, he was on 
the whole sluggish-minded, though capable at times 
of being swept away by Jacobin enthusiasms, he was 
above all conscious that his chances were good for 
acquiring a competence and making provision for his 
family. 

So far of the average citizen — especially in the 

tion, and I view p:reat cities as pestilential to the morals, the 
health and the liberties of man," 



THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE IN 1801. ^ 

Middle States. A harder type of character present- 
ed itself in ISTew England, for the hold of Calvinism, 
though loosening, was still strong. There the out- 
ward aspect of things reminded the traveller of Old 
England ; there labour was more strenuous, the 
classes more thoroughly divided, the clergyman and 
the magistrate more potent, the schoolmaster more in 
evidence — although, to say the truth, this latter 
functionary was of no elevated character anywhere 
in America. In the South — apart from the relations 
of master and slave, which after all were not so bad 
as they have been represented — a more genial, pleas- 
ant type of character appeared, but in a far from 
encouraging environment. The planter was hospi- 
table, courteous, often cultivated ; he was vigorous, 
fond of riding and out-door sports, a lover of good 
cheer; but he was too frequently improvident and 
prone to live on the proceeds of ungrown crops. His 
system of agriculture was wasteful, his lands, in the 
older States, were becoming exhausted, he was be- 
ginning to lose the energy that had given some of his 
class such prestige in the Revolution. But he brave- 
ly struggled to maintain his status, and he succeeded 
for many a long year in dominating his " poor 
whitei " neighbour who owned no slaves. He would 
hardly have admitted that his section needed a thrifty 
middle class, but we can all see it now. 

Receding from the tide-water country, we find a 
different class of inhabitants — what we may call the 
semi-pioneers. These are in the main farmers who 
have taken up lands as veritable pioneers, have felled 
trees and left the stumps to rot, have laboured with 
their wives and children, and seen other settlers fill 
the neighbourhood, and have finally become the lead- 
ing men in thriving back- or up-country comm-uni- 



8 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ties.* They are often of Scotch-Irish or German 
stock, are deeply religious, indulge in few worldly 
pleasures, but, when they do, choose coarse forms of 
dissipation, and make on the whole excellent found- 
ers of families. Around and beyond these men live 
more or less ne'er-do-well families of low extraction 
who subsist chiefly by hunting and wdio move on 
further West as civilisation creeps near them. Som5- 
times, however, this hunter class is graced by a 
Daniel Boone, or a " Leather Stocking," and its 
annals, if often sordid, are frequently illuminated 
by deeds of courage that should make the blood of 
every Anglo-Saxon tingle in his veins. The " Win- 
ners of the West," whether the families that slowly 
drove their waggons over the Alleghanies into Ten- 
nessee and Kentucky, or those that about the begin- 
ning of the century floated in such numbers down tho 
Ohio Itiver in flat-bottomed boats of all sizes 
and kinds, were empire builders of heroic propor- 
tions. The axe with which they felled forests, the 
rifle with which they quelled panther and Indian, 
are as deserving of honour as the sword and shield 
of the mediaeval knight. Their achievements form 
the theme of a A'eritable American epic, which Cooper 
has written for all time in his '" Leather Stocking 
Tales." t 

It has been intimated above that the population of 
the United States was not entirely English. Foreign 
admixture w^as particularly seen in Pennsylvania and 
Xew York, and partly accounted for the political 
and ecclesiastical confusion that marked these States ; 

* I.e., beyond the main area of settlement or beyond tide- 
water. 

I And Governor Theodore Roosevelt in his excellent voUmies 
entitled The Winning of the West, 



THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE IN 1801. 9 

but loosely speaking there had been for some time no 
foreign immigration worth mentioning, and the 
average American of 1801 was little more than a 
colonial Englishman. He aped English fashions in 
dress and literature; he had the coloniaFs self-de- 
precatory ways, combined with the latter's conceit 
and ignorance. He was only too likely to be thin- 
skinned and loud-mouthed and did not change greatly 
for the better until two generations had passed. But 
he was destined soon to be aroused from his Arcadian 
sluggishness. The democratic doctrines of Jefferson 
took hold upon him, the vast extent of the Louisiana 
Purchase fired his imagination, Fulton's successful 
experiment upon the Hudson River ushered in for 
him the age of steam and developed his inventive 
capacity, the struggle forced upon him by Great 
Britain and iSTapoleon awakened his sense of nation- 
ality. He opened his eyes and saw liimself to be pos- 
sessed of natural resources of soil and climate such 
as had fallen to the citizen of no other country. His 
character underwent a great change. In a generation 
he had established a pure democracy and laid tho 
foundations of a material greatness " beyond the 
dreams of avarice." In another generation he had 
preserved, through the greatest civil war of modern 
times, both his institutions and his material develop- 
ment. In a generation more he had exploited a con- 
tinent, had developed a civilisation tremendous in its 
possibilities, and was reaching out for trade and pos- 
sessions beyond the seas. If the territorial develop- 
ment of America in the nineteenth century is mar- 
vellous, the change in the character of the American 
is scarcely less so, xA.nd yet the century has produced 
no man who as man measures up to Washington or 
epitomises his age as Eranklin did. 



10 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE ^'E\V REGIME. 

The American people did not enter upon the nine- 
teenth century with all the confidence that befits 
youth. They had, indeed, just administered a rebuke 
to the political party in power — those Federalists 
who had encourag-ed the warlike flurry against 
France, who had piled up taxes, who had passed the 
Alien and Sedition Laws to suppress freedom of 
speech ; but they were by no means certain that the 
favourite statesman of the masses, Thomas Jefferson, 
would be permitted to succeed John Adams in the 
executive chair. xVfter much excitement and intrigue 
a majority of the presidential electors, who were 
then in the main chosen by the State legislatures, 
had been secured for the Democratic-Republican can- 
didates ; but unfortunately they had cast their votes 
evenly for Jefferson and his running-mate, Aaron 
Burr of Xew York, who had been picked out for the 
Vice-Presidency. As the Constitution stood, this 
meant that the Lower Llouse of Congress, voting by 
States, must decide which of the two should become 
President." But the Sixth Congress then in session 
at "Washington, which was still but a half-built vil- 
lage, was in the hands of a Federalist majority who 
were evidently anxious to defeat the will of the 
people and to perpetuate their own power. They 

* See Appendix A., article 2, section 1, 



THE NEW REGIME. H 

had at least two ways, both nefarious, of doing this. 
They could fail to elect by March 4th, the day on 
which a new Administration was due, and could then 
run the government by some extra-constitutional, i.e.j 
revolutionary means; or they could tamper with 
Burr, a tricky politician, secure compromising 
pledges from him, and then in return elect him over 
their most radical and redoubtable opponent, Jeffer- 
son. There was more danger that the latter course 
Avould be pursued than that the former would bo 
risked ; for Burr early showed himself walling to 
receive advances, and Jefferson was such an object 
of suspicion to every Federalist community that any 
unfairness to him would be condoned by the constit- 
uents of each congressman so offending. 

Such being the political situation, it is quite clear 
that the entire American people must have passed 
the month of January, 1801, in a state of turmoil 
and perturbation. In their previous difficulties they 
had looked to Washington for counsel and guidance; 
but alas ! his voice had been silent for a year. The 
Federalists, especially in Xew England, displayed 
all the chagrin natural to a defeated party and 
prophesied a reign of anarchy and the downfall of 
the Republic. The Democratic-Republicans felt 
thwarted and perplexed, and uncertain whether they 
might not have to secure their rights by armed force. 
The political leaders were meanwhile resorting to 
more peaceful means of persuasion ; but those were 
days of slow posts and the period of suspense must 
have seemed interminable. Finally, however, in the 
second week of February, the House began to ballot, 
and by the 17th of that month Federalist resistance 
to the will of the people had been broken. Jefferson 
was chosen President, the Vice-Presidency, which 



12 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

he was juat leaving, falling to Burr. To this result 
Jefferson's inveterate rival, Alexander Hamilton, 
had contributed effectually, though not perhaps with 
full magnanimity.'^ Knowing Burr to be corrupt 
and Jefferson to be honest, he was patriotic enough 
to lend his great influence to the latter, whose politi- 
cal principles he nevertheless reprobated. This 
action of Hamilton's, corresponding as it did with 
the wishes of the people and with the sense of recti- 
tude of moderate Federalists like James A. Bayard 
of Delaware, relieved the country from its great 
strain and also furnished a ground of confidence for 
contemporary and future patriotism. Love of coun- 
try had won a signal triumph over intense partisari- 
ship, and some at least of the gloomy forebodings 
of the aristocratic party had been set at naught by 
that party's most distinguished leader. Jefferson 
could henceforward preach with more confidence his 
comfortable doctrine of the ultimate supremacy of 
law and right in a government based upon popular 
support. 

i^either of the two great leaders who, to use Jef- 
ferson's expressive phrases, had been pitted against 
one another in Washington's cabinet like gamecocks, 
could have understood at the time the full force of 
Hamilton's dramatic intervention in the electoral 
crisis. It meant nothing less than that the party 
which had carried the new Republic over the trying 
period of organisation under the Constitution of 
1787, the party which had drawn to itself the bulk 
of the wealthy, the well-born, and the cultivated in- 
habitants of the older States, especially of ^ew Eng- 
land, the party which had promoted, under trained 

* In his famous letter to Bayard he \vas unnecessarily hard 
on Jefferson. 



THE NEW REGIME. I3 

statesmen, the financial and commercial prosperity 
of tlie country, was to lose its prestige rapidly and 
irretrievably and to expire within half a generation 
loaded down by accusations of treason and by a 
popular odium not entirely undeserved. It meant 
also that the new party, which was not yet sufficiently 
conscious of its essential character to accept the name 
'' Democratic " and preferred to be styled " Repub- 
lican," was to be purged, through its long lease of 
power, of many of its vagaries and extravagances, 
and was to continue throughout the century, under 
the name at first refused, to draw to itself the major 
part of such Americans as prefer a simple, economic 
form of government and put trust in the maxim vox 
popuU, vox Dei. It meant these things, but it also 
meant something far more important. It meant that 
public opinion was about to become a steady and 
fairly trustworthy force in government, and that a 
foundation had been laid for that optimistic belief 
in the nation's ability to emerge unscathed from any 
crisis which, if it has sometimes been to the American 
people a source of Aveakness, has oftener perhaps 
been a source of strength. 

Jefferson's election having been settled, the Fed- 
eralists showed an indecent haste to save all they 
could from the wreck of their party. In fact their 
conduct should make those persons pause who, in 
their disgust at present political corruption, are in- 
clined to think and say that we have left the golden 
age of American politics a century behind us. The 
Federalists had behaved as foolishly as possible when 
they had restricted freedom of speech in order to 
silence their opponents ; * they had shown slight 
sense of political morality and patriotism when they 
* Especially by the " Sedition Act " of 1798. 



14 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

had intrigued with Burr; now, even in the person 
of their President, John Adams, they manifested a 
petty spleen and a greed for official spoils that a Tam- 
many leader of to-day might admire. They delib- 
erately created a new rank of Federal judges for 
freshly organised circuits and added districts to those 
already in existence — thus developing a judiciary 
out of all proportion to the comparatively small body 
of business then coming before the Federal courts. 
There was also, of course, quite a cohort of attorneys, 
marshals, and the like to be recruited from the ranks 
of the party ; new offices were created for the District 
of Columbia; and the salaries of several judges in 
Northern districts Avere raised. Adams at once pro- 
ceeded to fill the new places with his oum party-men, 
but neither he nor his Secretary of State, John Mar- 
shall, could work fast enough. It is said that Mar- 
shall was at work at midnight on ]\Iarch od making 
out commissions by candle-light, when an emissary 
of the new President stopped him in his task. Mar- 
shall's own assignment as Chief Justice of the Su- 
preme Court had been already made, however, and 
gratitude for this altogether admirable appointment 
should induce us to condone Adams's want of deli- 
cacy with regard to the incoming Executive.* If, 
however, he knew what a thorn he had stuck in his 
successor's official pillow by this appointment, he 
must be convicted of a refinement of cruelty rare in 
history. Marshall was destined to serve the coun- 
try nobly, but he managed at the same time to try 
Jefferson's patience severely, as we shall soon see. 

Having hampered the new Administration as ef- 
fectively as he could in a practical way, Adams pro- 

* Marshall began to preside over tlie court in February, 
1801. 



THE NEW REGIME. ' 15 

eeeded to insult it by driving out of Washington at 
an early hour of the morning of March 4th, in order 
to avoid attending Jefferson's inauguration.* The 
matter is of consequence now only as showing how 
far even the Founders of the Republic were often 
removed from that Ohanpian serenity and dignity 
which we frequently assume to have characterised 
them. Yet Adams was a really great man who had 
served his country well and who would not ordinarily 
have done a petty thing — especially to an old friend 
like Jefferson. The fact was that like most of his 
fellow Federalists he was completely blind to the real 
significance of the great popular movement that had 
lifted Jefferson to power. Many of the people had 
indeed shown an extravagant partisanship for the 
French revolutionists and an unreasoning rancour 
against Great Britain ; some foul-mouthed editors 
had assailed the leading statesmen of the times, not 
even sparing \Yashington ; but the people as a whole 
were sound in heart and, in their opposition to gor- 
ernmental extravagance and attempted tyranny, 
more sound in mind than the Federalists were. Yet 
the latter, ji\r,t as many an English gentleman in 
those days of startling changes, fancied that the 
world was out of joint. Exactly a week after Adams 
left Washington for his Massacliusetts home, Chris- 
topher Gadsden of South Carolina, a State in which 
the Federalists had not a little sti-ength, wrote him 
a friendly letter containing the following sentences 
which all persons pessimistically inclined would do 
well to ponder : 

" Long have I been led to think our planet a mere 

* John Quincy Adams did not attend Jackson's inaugura- 
tion, nor did Andrew Johnson attend Gi'ant's — jjersonal 
reasons operating in both cases. 



16 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

bedlam, and the imeommonly extravagant raving* 
of our own times, especially for a few years past, 
and still in tlie highest rant, have greaily increased 
and contirmed that opinion. Look round our whirl- 
ing globe, my friend, where you will, east, west, 
north, or soutii, where is tl e spot in which are not 
many thousands of these mad lunatics t " 

To this outpouring Adams replied about a month 
later: 

" I concur with you so fully in sentiment that I 
very much doubt whether in any period of the world 
so much ever happened in a dozen years to mortify 
the vanity of human nature, and to render existence 
odious to man/' 

lie concluded his letter by wishing prosperity to 
Jefferson's administration, but felt that its com- 
mencement was '* too strongly infected with the spirit 
of party, to give much encouragement to men '' who 
were " merely national." In other words, Adams 
sincerely believed himself to be a nationalist, al- 
though he was equally contident that the mass of his 
fellow citizens, who constituted a very large part of 
the nation, were no better than raging maniacs. Like 
many another able man before and since, he was 
temporarily confounding party with country.* 

Meanwhile Jefferson was belying the sinister repu- 
tation given him by his foes. His inauguration had 
taken place in a modest way befitting his unaffected 
republican simplicity, and he had delivered an ad- 
dress which so far from being a partisan fulmination 
was rather an evangel of political good-will. He 
maintained his favourite thesis that government 
should depend \ipon the support of the governed, 
and should be economically administered, but he 

* See Part III., Chap. I., passim. 



THE NEW REGIME. 17 

maintained also that the Union should be preserved, 
under the Constitution, in its pristine vigour, and 
that in reality tho political dilTerencee existing 
among Americans did not relate to vital principle.^. 
" We are all Republicans/' he said, *' we are Federal- 
ists," and the statement was more than a successful 
appeal to secure desertions from the ranks of his op- 
ponents. At bottom, most Americans of Jetferson's 
day and since have been at one with regard to the 
general principles of republican government — prin- 
ciples which were so clearly outlined in this In- 
augural Address that it has become a political classic. 
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever 
state or persuasion, religious or political ; peace, com- 
merce, and honest friendship with all nations — en- 
tangling alliances with none — these and a score 
of other phrases, however hackneyed they may have 
become, have lost little of their golden cadence to the 
ear of the average xVmerican. !N^or has Jefferson's 
belief that the government he was about to admin- 
ister was '* the world's best hope " ever ceased to be 
tlie honest conviction of his countrjT.nen, who still 
M'ith him bow to the will of the majority, although 
they may not be so scrupulous as he was in endeavour- 
ing to safeguard the right? of the minority. 

But although it is most important to know what 
were the general political principles dominant in 
America at the beginning of this century, it is almost 
as necessary to know something of the personality 
of the man first called upon to put them into practice. 
That personality has not lost its fascination with the 
lapse of years, but it is to be feared that few who 
feel it to-day comprehend rightly what the m;in stood 
for. Tie is no longer reviled as he was by the Xew 
Encland clergy, but he is quoted in support of causes 
^ 2 



18 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and measures which he would reprobate were he with 
us in the flesh. 

Fortune was kind to Thomas Jeffersion almost 
from the moment of his birth in 1743. He was born 
in the frontier Virginia county of Albemarle, and 
was thus brought into early contact with a sturdy, 
honest, more or less plain people, who gave him les- 
sons in j)ractical democracy. by teaching him to recog- 
nise popular worth wherever he might find it, whether 
in his own State, or in the North, or in the new com- 
monwealths beyond the Alleghany Mountains. On 
the other hand his private means and his aristocratic 
connections gave him a good education and leisure to 
indulge his scholarly proclivities. His nature was 
singularly sympathetic and impressionable, and he 
was born just at the right time to embody the senti- 
mental and speculative spirit of the latter half of the 
eighteenth century. Entering politics shortly before 
the culmination of the Revolutionary crisis, he was 
given admirable training in the art of moulding opin- 
ions and of leading both his fellow politicians and the 
general public. He was no orator, but he was a ready 
writer, and as a drafter of State papers he has per- 
haps never been surpassed. His political promotion 
was naturally rapid and steady. At the age of thirty- 
three he had drawn the Declaration of Independence. 
Three years later he was made Governor of Virginia, 
and if he displayed in this office no great executive 
ability, he could nevertheless in a fcAV years look 
back upon his connection with the politics of his 
native State with the feeling that he had done more 
than any other man to put an end to feudal and 
aristocratic privileges and to establish a really effec- 
tive form of popular liberty, at least for citizens of 
his own race. Subsequent service in Congress and as 



THE NEW REGIME. 19 

Franklin's successor at the Conrt of France strength- 
ened his powers and widened his experience, so that 
Washington felt justified in choosing him as the 
first Secretary of State. If he did not prove so bril- 
liant and reliable a subordinate as Hamilton, he 
nevertheless learned in the Cabinet lessons of execu- 
tive routine that were valuable in later years. His 
opposition to Hamilton gave coherence to his politi- 
cal philosophy and made him obviouslv a proper 
leader for the anti-Federalist or Republican adver- 
saries of the strong central government the Federal- 
ists were bent on establishing. Such leadership, in- 
deed, brought into relief certain of his unfortunate 
qualities — his tendency to inordinate suspicion, to in- 
discretion, to lack of loyalty to friends ; but it en- 
abled him to reply to the Alien and Sedition Laws 
by the famous Kentucky Eesolutions, of wdiich we 
shall have more to say later, and it gave him a fre^h 
sort of executive training as Vice-President under 
John Adams. 

Such in brief were the steps by which Jefferson 
rose to the highest office in the Republic. Having 
followed them, we sliall not be surprised to find him 
most successful in shaping the policy of his two ad- 
ministrations. But he had evidently been trained 
to make a supple rather than a strong executive, as 
well as one not entirely capable of taking a cath- 
olic, rounded view of his duties and opportunities. 
He was suspicious by nature and had many of the 
normal prejudices of an agriculturist against the 
other classes of the body politic. Tie was a little too 
much of a sentimentalist and idealist. He lacked 
dignity and strenuous energy, and was therefore 
better fitted to persuade than to command. But 
to compensate, he had an absolute genius for sym- 



20 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

pathising with the masses of the people and for un- 
derstanding them ; he was a cosmopolitan in the best 
sense of the word; he was perhaps the ablest politi- 
cal thinker of his time ; he was far ahead of his gen- 
eration in mental receptivity and in general culture. 
The last fact leads us to notice the chief injustice 
that is done his fame to-day. He is made to father, 
or else quoted to support, nearly every political nos- 
trum applied to present evils by men of limited 
knowledge and inflexible minds. He is also charged 
with being the prime source of those evils by the 
men who dislike the nostrums prescribed in his 
name. Rarely has grosser injustice been done a 
statesman. His remedies for the evils of his own times 
may not have been always successful, but they were 
always worthy of a philosopher and a trained public 
servant. Nor is the system of popular government 
which he advocated and was greatly instrumental in 
establishing responsible in any large measure for 
present evils, since that system soon fell into in- 
ferior hands and in a debased form had to stand a 
strain which not even the wisest statesman could 
have foreseen. For Jefferson, though a democrat 
at heart and confident of the people's ability to 
choose leaders capable of guiding them to national 
peace and happiness, never advocated the virtual 
abrogation of leadership in the Republic and the as- 
sumption by the people of the task of choosing fit 
policies for every emergency. He thought, and 
rightly, that the people were wise enough to oppose 
tyranny and to insist upon economic and equitable 
government, but lie could not have imagined that the 
day would ever come when the time-honoured dollar 
which he was mainly instrumental in making the 
national standard of value, would ever dej)end for its 



THE NEW REGIME. 21 

piircliasing power upon the votes of several millions 
of citizens unversed in the science of finance. He 
" felt the popular pulse," but he did not gallop 
through the country in a coach or traverse it on 
horseback — the rear-platform of a railway train was 
not then at his service — in order to determine what 
foreign policy it would be best to pursue. But now 
that these necessary points have been touched upon, 
it will be well to take a nearer view of his policies 
both foreign and domestic. 

John Adams had, as we have seen, expressed the 
fear that Jeiferson's administration was too much 
committed to partisanship to be successful. Ro- 
tation in office had once been a Jeffersonian doc- 
trine, if we may judge from certain constitutions 
drafted by him for Virginia, and it has since played 
a conspicuous part in the history of the political or- 
ganisation that has derived its main principles from 
him. It is important, therefore, to learn what was 
Jefferson's attitude toward the civil service, and it 
is pleasant and instructive to tiud that he acted 
toAvards the subordinates he found in office, not prob- 
ably as Washington would have acted, but in a 
dignified way wliich gives little countenance to 
what has long been known as the " spoils system."' 
He naturally set aside such of Adams's "' midnight 
appointments " as had not been technically made 
valid by means of a signed commission, but in a 
majority of cases he himself commissioned the per- 
sons formerly appointed. An attempt to make him 
issue all the original commissions failed in the fa- 
mous case of Marbury vs. Madison, although Chief 
Justice Marshall criticised the executive's action 
severely. A few removals were made in which party 
motives seemed dominant, chiefly in the Middle 



22 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

States where office seekers were numerous aud par- 
tisanship ran high, but on the whole Jefferson be- 
haved with great moderation. He felt that the 
offices were not equitably distributed between the 
parties, but he wished to heal, not widen the breach 
between himself and his adversaries, and his main 
removals were made on fairly substantiated charges 
of unbecoming partisanship. He comjjletely falsi- 
fied Adams's predictions that noisy editors and other 
offensive henchmen who had helped to turn the 
Federalists out would be rewarded with place and 
power; as a matter of fact his failure to reward 
them set some of them against him, especially the 
scurrilous James Thomas Callender. ISTor did he 
yield in any -way to the vice of nepotism. Such a 
record is surely worthy of commendation, particu- 
larly in the case of a man who believed so thorough- 
ly in the virtues of his own adherents and in the 
vices of his opponents, and who was a shrewd enough 
politician to note hoAv well the new leaven was w^ork- 
ing in States like Khode Island and Vermont, which 
could be won from the enemy with a little judicious 
patronage. He preferred to win them in a more 
creditable way, however, and he did.* 

His use of the appointing power was good also in 
a positive sense, as is evidenced by his choice of his 
cabinet. Only two of his Secretaries are now gea- 
erally remembered — James Madison, M^ho filled the 
Department of State with dignity and ability, and 
Albert Gallatin, who conducted the business of the 
Treasury with a skill less than that of his prede- 
cessor, Hamilton, but greater perhaps than that of 
any of his long line of successors. Yet if 

* Estimates of the number of officers removed for partisan 
purposes vary considerably. 



THE NEW REGIME. 23 

it is needless to record here the names of the other 
secretaries, it is only fair to say that they were com- 
petent men who worked in harmony with their chief, 
much in accordance with principles derived from 
Washington. Jefferson had learned from his own 
experience the need of harmony in cabinet councils, 
and he was too honest and clear-headed to think it 
necessary, as many of his successors have done, to 
choose his advisers in order to win the favour of a 
particular locality or in order to pay a political debt. 
He actually took two of his secretaries from Massa- 
chusetts, the stronghold of Federalism and clerical- 
ism, and it would be unfair to him to suggest that ho 
was thinking more of winning converts to Repul)- 
licanism and liberalism than of the fitness of his 
appointees. He acted on, even if he did not formal- 
ly enunciate the principle that " a public office is a 
public trust." * 

As the Seventh Congress was not to meet until 
December.f the new Administration had several 
months in which to get into running order and to 
outline the policy it wished the legislature to author- 
ise. That policy was sure to be in the main one of 
" retrenchment and reform," and it therefore sug- 
gests the irony of fate to find Jefferson, before the 
spring was out, with a small war on his hand?. 
Those were days when the leading nations of Chris- 
tendom purchased immunity for their commerce 
from the piratical Barbary States, and the latter had 
been especially insulting in their exaction? from the 
new transatlantic Republic, which had a considerable 

* This apt sayinjr is credited to President Cleveland. 

f See Appen'dix A., article 1. section 4. There are two 
Congresses to each Administration, members of the Tiower 
House being elected over a year before the normal time of 
their taking their seats. 



24 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

interest in the safety of the Mediterranean carrying 
trade. Matters came to such a pass that Jeiferson 
had to dispatch a small squadron to overawe the 
Barbarj coast and to bring Tripoli, in particular, to 
her senses. A blockade and the capture of a Tripoli- 
tan cruiser in the summer of 1801 effected the latter 
purpose for the time being, but later and more strenu- 
ous exertions were needed to put an end to the whole 
trouble. Meanwhile Jefferson could recall his long 
since cherished scheme to unite Christendom against 
these pests of commerce and could conclude that fate 
had not been so ironical after all. 

Before he could have heard of the temporary suc- 
cess of his naval expedition, the country-loving Presi- 
dent had left the insalubriously heated capital for 
the cool breezes of his rural home, Monticello, in his 
beloved Albemarle. He was not idle, however, for 
he had to watch affairs and to keep up his huge cor- 
respondence. This correspondence, by means of 
which he kept in touch with the entire country, is one 
of the chief proofs of Jefferson's political genius ; it 
also suggests what a change quick posts, telegraphic 
facilities, telephones, and the modern newspaper 
have made in political methods. Intrigue and a 
large, open purse can and do give individuals Im- 
mense power over the actions of men to-day ; but no 
man, seemingly, is at present able to sway men's 
thoughts as Jefferson could by means of his pen. The 
complexity of the agencies now influencing public 
thought seems to account in part for the fact that no 
straightforward, consistent guidance for it can be 
found. Jefferson at Monticello writing to the new 
minister to France, Robert R. Livingston, for whose 
benefit he undertook an admirable discussion of the 
principles that should regulate neutral trade in time 



THE NEW REGIME. 25 

of war, is a picture that the student of American 
history should constantly contrast with the familiar 
woodcuts of a noisy, irresponsible modern nominat- 
ing convention like the Chicago one of 1896. 

On his return to the capital Jelferson and his sec- 
retaries devoted their energies to preparing for the 
reforms which the President had already outlined in 
a letter to Xathaniel Macon, an able and upright 
representative from Xorth Carolina, who was soon 
to be chosen Speaker of the House. These reforms, 
some of which had been tegiln, wei'e in the main as 
follows : The Federalist act of 1801 for enlarging 
the judiciary was to be repealed ; the utmost economy, 
both in expending and in collecting revenues, was to 
be urged upon Congress ; the army was to be reduced 
to a minimum, reliance being had upon the militia 
of the States ; the navy was to be limited to the 
smallest number of vessels allowed by law; the dip- 
lomatic establishment in Europe was to be cut down 
to three ministers ; last, but not to Jefferson's mind 
loast, all such courtlike functions as levees would be 
abolished and the President would send his annual 
message to Congress in writing instead of delivering 
it in person as his predecessors had done. 

This programme, which was carried out with a 
thoroughness that no modern President would so 
much as hope for,* demands a few words of general 
comment. It is obviously that of a gentleman-farmer, 
but it is also that of an idealist statesman, of a friend 
of humanity in the highest sense. It was, of course, 
open to Federalist criticism when it was promul- 
gated, and it has since been battered and riddled by 

* Tlie messages sent to Congress by recent Presidents are 
full of recommendations of which not the least notice is 
taken. 



26 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

able historians with a sense for logic and an aptitude 
for scorn. Events speedily proved the reduction of 
the army and navy to be most unwise; but it must 
be remembered that in 1801 Europe seemed to be on 
the eve of a general peace and that a philanthropist 
like Jefferson could not well have fathomed the 
depths of selfish ambition of a conqueror like I^apo- 
leon. Besides, as we shall see in the next chapter, 
-lefferson had developed, on Revolutionary prece- 
dents, a theory to the effect that America could force 
any hostile country to terms by refusing to import 
goods from it. That this was anticipating by m.oro 
than one century the preponderating influence of 
economic interests and Christian principles upon the 
politics of the world may be granted ; but it is only 
justice to Jefferson to contend that the eighteenth 
century had made such tremendous reforms in all 
directions that the first decade of the nineteenth had 
some grounds for believing that it could cap them all ; 
and that at least it is due to humanity that enthusias- 
tic men and nations should attempt the salvation of 
the race even at greater risks than Jefferson and 
America ran. It should be observed further that 
closer study of Jefferson's peaceful policy might, but 
a few months since, have directed the spirit of Ameri- 
can philanthropy along higher and more successful 
lines than it actually took in the Cuban crisis. 

Congress, on assembling early in December, did 
not devote so much attention to the weakest parts of 
the President's programme as to one of its strongest 
features — to wit, the reduction of the judiciary with- 
in proper bounds. This was probably due to the 
fact that the party in opposition yielded to the 
natural temptation to defend its own actions rather 
than the country's interests. The debate on the pro- 



THE NEW REGIME. 27 

posed r^i^eal Avas protracted and heated as well, es- 
pecially in the passage at arms between Wm. B. Giles 
of Virginia, the leading Republican in the House, 
and Bayard, the ablest Federalist. Bayard defended 
the whole course of his party's history against the 
attack of Giles in a way that still challenges respect 
if not approval, but neither he nor Gouverneur Mor- 
ris in the Senate — that out of place Patrician — nor 
any other of the Federalist speakers deserved to 
prevail over the xldministration's large majority. 
Their constitutional arguments, though acute, were 
not convincing; and the arguments from expediency 
were mainly on the side championed ably by Macon 
and a young man, whose name will frequently occur 
hereafter, the famous eccentric, John Randolph of 
Roanoke. The final vote was indeed uncomfortably 
close in the Senate, but in the House corresponded 
fairly with the hopes of the Executive. 

The financial reforms urged by Jefferson and Gal- 
latin were naturally supplemented by the reductions 
in the judicial and diplomatic salary lists and in 
army and navy expenditures, but they were more far 
reaching in character. Jefferson sympathised with 
his fellow agriculturists of the South and West in 
their hatred of the excise or internal revenue taxes, 
and he was utterly indisposed to look upon the na- 
tional debt* as a source of stability to the govern- 
ment. Gallatin accordingly proposed to rely on the 
receipts from postage, sale of public lands, and cus- 
toms (amounting to about $9,500,000) in order to 
run the economically administered government and 
to devote about $7,300,000 to the debt which would 
thus be paid off in half a generation. The latter fact 
was in harmony with Jefferson's theory that one gen- 

* Then amounting to nearly $83,000,000. 



28 PEOGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

eration should not bind another; while the abolition 
of the excise did away with odious tax-gatherers and 
with all excuse for such popular uprisings as the 
Whisky Kebellion in Western Pennsylvania, which 
had caused Washington so much trouble in 1794. 
The modest figures just given Avould prove Jeffer- 
son's popular sympathies, his distrust of the financial 
and commercial classes, and his determination not to 
interfere with internal improvements and other 
domestic matters then attended to by the respective 
States, even if we did not have his correspondence 
to give us his views upon these points. The ready 
acceptance of his financial programme by his party 
t'liows furthermore that he was not the only optimist 
in the country, for if Congress had deemed war im- 
minent, it is hardly conceivable that even Jefferson 
could have induced them to be content with a com- 
bined army and navy expenditure that did not quite 
reach $2,000,000 per annum! 

Congress adjourned early in May, 1802, with the 
coiuitry well satisfied with the work that had been 
done. A glance through their debates shows them to 
have been a serious and fairly able body of men, few 
of whom, however, have left men\orable names. Their 
more important work has just been outlined, but it 
may be well to notice in addition that they admitted 
a new State, Ohio, allowed a delegate to sit for the 
irississippi Territory, legislated for the infant Li- 
brary of Congress, restored the moderate naturali- 
sation requirements of Washington's day, which the 
Federalists had disturbed, and discussed the impro- 
priety of continuing to imprison the government's in- 
solvent debtors. The last topic reminds one forcibly 
of tlie progress the century has made in a humani- 
tarian wav. It is hard to realise that in Jefferson's 



THE NEW RECxIME. 20 

time John Rutledge, the younger, of South Carolina, 
could cite the case of an honest revenue officer of his 
State who, having through ignorance mixed his ac- 
counts and become indebted to the general govern- 
ment, had been already languishing in iail for five 
years and could look forward to no relief.* Yet the 
tide had undoubtedly turned. " The Revolution of 
1800," as the success of Jefferson and the Republi- 
cans has been termed, had brought the long-suffering 
people into power, and so far at least had not jeopar- 
dised the country. Curiously enough, however, 
throughout Jefferson's lease of power (1801-1809) 
a contemporary observer might well have doubted 
whether this new revolution had not taken a mon- 
archical turn, for few kings; have ever had their way 
so completely as Jefferson had. The political history 
of the United States during the first decade of this 
century reads like a biography of Jefferson, but this 
fact is due not to that statesman's bias towards 
tyranny — no man ever hated irresponsible power 
more — but to his skill as a moulder of public opin- 
ion and to his sympathy with his fellow-countrymen 
upon whose support his power rested. 

* Imprisonment for debt was abolished by the Federal gov- 
ernment a generation later, and this led to its abandonment 
in the States. 



30 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER III. 

DOMESTIC AND FOEEIGN POLICY. 

Jefferson entered on his second year of office 
with high satisfaction at what his Administration 
had thus far accomplished and with not unwarranted 
hopes for still greater future success. He controlled 
his party and his party controlled the country, while 
the Federalists were daily losing ground even in 
Massachusetts. But he v/as soon to learn that For- 
tune will desert a humanitarian philosopher almost 
as soon as she will a self-assertive aristocrat like 
Adams. He was destined, indeed, to taste her favours 
long enough to secure himself a triumphant re-elec- 
tion, but soon afterward he could complain of her 
fickleness as few American Presidents have had just 
occasion to do. If he had been less of an optimist, 
the extreme political partisanship displayed in I^ew 
York and Pennsylvania, the scurrilous abuse heaped 
upon him in certain quarters, and the restless in- 
trigues of Burr might have disquieted him ; but he 
was apparently more concerned at the correctness 
of certain reports from abroad which had reached 
him early in his Administration. 

These reports Avere to the effect that the decrepit 
Spanish Monarchy had ceded back to France the 
great Territory of Louisiana which the latter had 
given up in 1702, It was serious news, for it not 
only meant the possible growth of a powerful rival 
empire across the Mississippi, but it made certain a 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 31 

repetition of the struggles the general government 
of the United States had already been obliged to 
make in order to secure for its trans-Alleghanj'^ in- 
habitants the right of depositing their goods at some 
point near the mouth of their inland waterway. 
Free navigation of the great stream could mean lit- 
tle unless shippers could store their produce prior to 
its transference from river boats to ocean-going ves- 
sels, and without free navigation of their natural 
waterway the western men must be cut off from the 
world's markets. But Spain had haggled at grant- 
ing the right of deposit, and her minister to the Unit- 
ed States in the years immediately following the Rev- 
olution had actually intrigued with leading men in 
the West with a view of detaching the new settle- 
ments from the Union that did not secure them in 
their dearest rights. Indeed, so weak was the tie be- 
tween East and West that the Continental Congress 
came near giving up the fight for free navigation, 
a false step from which they finally recoiled, as it 
might have cost them the allegiance of the outlying 
communities. Finally in 1795, after it had seemed 
likely that an unauthorised attempt might be made 
to force Spain's hand, a treaty was concluded by 
which the right of deposit at iVTew Orleans was 
granted for a short period, with a proviso that some 
other place might subsequently be chosen. 

In view of these uncomfortable experiences it is 
no wonder that Livingston was instructed to remon- 
strate against Spain's retrocession to France or else 
to insist upon tlie sale to the United States of New 
Orleans and the Floridas. It seems not to have been 
clear to Jefferson how much territory Spain was 
yielding to France, whether she was giving up the 
strip east of the Mississippi and bordering the Gulf, 



32 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

kno^^^l as West Florida, or merely yielding the vast 
indoterminate tract -west of the great river which 
she had received from France in 1702; but it wa3 
clear to him that there was '* on the globe one single 
spot/' Xew Orleans, the possessor of which was the 
'' natural and habitual enemy '' of the United States. 
Jefferson loved France and did not love Great Brit- 
ain, but lie was statesman enough to lay a?ide his 
prejudices when he was confronted by hard facts. 
In his famous letter to Livingston of April 18, 
1802, he declared categorically: "The day that 
France takes possession of Xew Orleans, fixes the 
sentence which is to restrain her for ever within her 
low water mark. It seals the union of two nations 
who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive posses- 
sion of tlie ocean. From that monu^it we nnist marry 
ourselves to the British tleet and nation." -IctlVrson 
has often been accused with justice of being a vision- 
ary statesman, but this splendid letter to Livingston 
proves that on the occasion of the greatest external 
menace to lier safety America has ever encountered, 
the phik">sopher showed himself to be as wi?e and 
practical a ruler as Washington or Lincoln. 

Fortunately Jefferson was not in the end obliged 
either to form an alliance with Great Britain or to 
reconcile himself with a steady enmity to France, 
either of which courses might at any time liave led 
his country into one of those wars he so much de- 
tested. At first, however, his diplomacy seemed 
fruitless, Xapoleon had wild dreams of a Western 
Fmpire and treated Livingston's propositions with 
coldnes*, while the Spanish Intendant at !N"ew Or- 
leans, pending the transfer to France, suspended the 
right of deposit. This action, which seems to have 
l>een due to stupidity rather than to premeditated 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 33 

hostile intentions, naturally aroused the West and 
gave the Federalists in the second session of the 
Seventh Congress (December, 1802) an excellent 
chance to embarrass the Administration. Jefferson 
in his message had barely touched on the cession 
of Louisiana and had kept silence about the loss of 
the right of deposit, l)ut he was soon called upon to 
furnish papers on the latter point. The House Re- 
publicans under the lead of llandolph voted their 
confidence in the Executive, but the Federalists 
wished to broaden the controversy and to force tlia 
House into a debate that might lead to the war 
Hamilton was advocating in the newspapers. With 
his usual tact Jefferson secured secret sessions to 
which he revealed his plans of purchasing New Or- 
leans and the Floridas, and as a result of his di- 
jdomacY and Ivandolph's leadership he succeeded in 
liaving $2,000,000 appropriated for his purposes. 
He also had James Monroe, lately governor of Vir- 
ginia, appointed a special envoy to join with Liv- 
ingston at Paris and Pinckney at Madrid in en- 
deavouring to secure the Florida cession. This aj)- 
pointment was a shrewd one, for Monroe had years 
before supported the West in its demands for free 
navigation of the Mississippi. That section at once 
([uieted down. an(l when later in the session the 
Federalist Senators endeavoured to insist upon the 
Administration's at once taking New Orleans by 
force, two of the calmest and ablest speakers in sujv 
port of Jefferson's diplomacy were Breckinridge of 
Kentucky and Anderson of Tennessee. Tt was in- 
deed queer that the cultured Morris of Xew York 
should be found urging backwoodsmen to fight; but 
partisanship will change men's nature'^, and the 
chance to force a war on Jefferson, of all meiij 
3 



34 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

was too good to be lost. Yet the philosopher was a 
match for his foes, since he not onlj curbed the 
temper of the West bv his politic arts, but also ex- 
plained his policy in a way that satisfies posterity 
of his wisdom. He stated explicitly to a corres- 
pondent that he believed in putting- off the day of 
contention until the public debt had been decreased 
and until a population had been planted *' on the 
]\rississippi itself sufficient to do its o^m work with- 
out marching" men fifteen hundred miles from the 
Atlantic shores to perish by fatigue and unfriendly 
climates." These words are not without their ap- 
plication at the end of the century. 

Congress closed without having done much more 
than to vote Jefferson the money he desired and to 
authorise him at discretion to call out 80,000 vol- 
unteers whom he did not desire. "We are therefore 
justified in calling it a wise legislature and can for- 
give it for solemnly discussing what disposition oiight 
to be made of jewels given by the Spanish King to 
the wife of a retiring minister. With Congress out 
of the way, the President heard with pleasure that the 
Spanish government had disavowed the action of its 
Intendant at 'New Orleans. This was a point gained 
even if Livingston continued to find Xapoleon ob- 
durate. The President could still honestly write of 
himself and his countrymen, '' Peace is our passion," 
partly because he foresaw that peace was the last thing 
France and Great Britain were thinking of and that 
a renewal of war in Europe would mean the abandon- 
ment of Xapoleon's Western Empire, which was not 
tliriving even in San Pomingo. Seldom have a 
statesman's calculations Ix^en more speedily or com- 
pletely fulfilled. Early in April, 1803,' and just 
before ^[onroe's arrival, Barbe-^Farboi^ was author- 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 35 

ised to treat with Livingston for the transfer, not 
of the eoniparatively small territory with whieh -lef- 
ferson wonld perforce have l)e(>n content, but of 
the whole nndeflned area of Louisiana. This, if it 
certainly did not include East IHorida, and prob- 
ably not West Florida, nevertheless furnished a 
vast trans-]\Iississippi empire which would stretch 
to the Pacific Ocean if American discoveries in the 
Oregon region could be made good.* On Monroe's 
arrival the bargain was concluded at about $15,000,- 
000, the treaty providing for the liberties and rights 
of the inhabitants of the ceded province. 

The news of the cession was received with enthu- 
siasm in America, but extreme Federalists resolved 
to make capital out of it, and Jefferson clearly fore- 
saw how they could succeed. Tt was not certain 
that the Constitution contemplated the acquisition of 
new territory, especially M'hen the inhabitants thereof 
were to be " incorporatcnl in the Union of the Unite<l 
States," as was providc^l in the third article of the 
treaty just signed. Still Jefferson was wise enough 
to cease speculating whether the new States destined 
to grow up l)eyond the ^lississippi would one day 
assert their independence, and confined himself to 
l^resent considerations mainly. The ^Mississippi 
question was settled by the cession, and this im- 
])ortant gain must not be jeopardised by any delay 
in ratifying the treaty, especially as ISTapoleon miglir 
change his mind. And after all a constitutional 
amendment might authorise the transaction after 
the fact and thus salve the consciences of strict con- 
structionists of that great instrument, including the 
President. Meanwhile the astute statesman shoM'ed 

* Captain Robert Gray, a New England trader, discovered 
the Cohimbia River in 1792. 



36 PROCxREi^S OF THE UNITED STATES. 

his prescience as well .is his interest in science by 
anthorising preparations for an exploration ol' the 
new region nntler Lewis and Clark, which Congress 
had at his instigation agreed to before the pnrchase 
of Louisiana had taken place.* 

The first session of the Eighth Congress convened 
in October, nearly two months earlier than usual, 
on account of the pressing nature of the Louisiana 
business. With the country and the Administration 
heartily in favour of ratifying the treaty, the Fed- 
eralists could make neither a winning nor a long 
fight. They made the most of Spain's displeasure 
at Napoleon's alleged breach of faith, they urged 
the constitutional objections that had occurred to 
Jefferson, they predicted gigantic disasters to the 
LTnion consequent upon the growth in the new ter- 
ritory of a restless population alien to the quiet 
people of the Atlantic seaboard. One Senator 
went so far as to declare: ''But as to Louisiana, 
this new, immense, unbounded world, if it should 
ever be incorporated into this Union, which I have 
no idea can be done but by altering the Constitu- 
tion, I believe it will be the greatest curse that could 
at present befall us." There is little reason to doubt 
that this gentleman from DelaMvnre meant what he 
said, nor is it necessary to accuse him of great folly 
for having said it. He simply could not foresee 

*C<'iptain Merriwetlier Lewis and Tiieutenant William Clark 
left St. Louis in May, 1804. reached the head-waters of the 
Missouri River in August, 1805, and in November of the same 
year saw the Pacific. Tlie return journey occupied about a 
year and tlie whole ex]iedition was a notable one. Mean- 
while Lieutenant Zebulou Montgomery Pike had left St. 
Louis in August, ISOo, to discover (he head-waters of the 
Mississippi. On completing this task he was intrusted with 
explorations in the Ijouisiana Territory and discovered 
" Pike's Peak " in the Rockv Mountains. 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. .37 

that in a few years railroads and telegraph wires 
would make Iowa nearer to Washington than Dela- 
ware was then. Nor were the constitutional argu- 
ments urged against this early effort at " expan- 
sion " altogether beside the mark, since the theory 
that the Union was a partncrshij:) of sovereign States 
in which each partner had inviolable rights was 
M-idely held at the time, and it was questionable 
whether new partners could be taken in by the mere 
action of Congress and the Executive. In this con- 
nection it nuiy be remarked that these debates have 
been much in evidence on account of controversies 
arising out of the late war with Spain, but have 
scarcely been used with discretion. The annexation 
of territory which all parties agreed in regarding as 
fit material out of which future States might be 
carved was one thing from the point of view of gen- 
eral republican theory; the annexation of territory 
not so regarded is quite another, however advisable 
and legitimate it may or may not be from the point 
of view of government in general. 

After the main question of the Louisiana pur- 
chase had been decided. Congress continued in ses- 
sion until the end of March without accomplishing 
much that w^as noteworthy. Three topics were, in- 
deed, discussed that were to assume later more or 
less important proportions. These were the impor- 
tation of slaves, certain Georgia land claims, and 
the propriety of impeaching Justice Samuel Chase 
of the Supreme Court for scandalously partisan con- 
duct on the bench. But at least nothing hap- 
pened to disturb the popularity of the Administra- 
tion, and Jefferson was renominated unanimously 
by a caucus of Republican Senators and Representa- 
tives, the veteran Xew York politician, George 



38 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Clinton, being selected for Vice-President in place 
of the discredited Bnrr. To prevent any recurrence 
of a tie vote Congress had proposed an amendment 
to the (V>nslitution which was dnly ratified by throe- 
fourths of the State Legislatures and stands in force 
to-day as the Eleventh Amendment.* Under this 
Jefferson and Clinton were in Xovember, 1801, 
elected over the Federalists, Charles C. Pinckney 
of South Carolina and Rufus King of New York, 
by the handsome vote of 1G:2 electors against 1-4. 
Meanwhile Burr had been defeated as a candidate 
for the governorship of Xew York, and had, partly 
in consecpience, picked a quarrel with Hamilton aiid 
killed him in a duel. Jefferson seemed to be now 
left securely in the ascendant. He had won the 
gratitude of the country by his annexation of an 
imperial th»niain; a new lease of jwwer had been 
given him; his ablest opj)onent was dead and his 
most unscrupulous rival a discredited politician and 
social outcast; and finally the ]>arty and section 
arrayed against him were in a hopeless minority 
and had been compelled to abandon, at least tem- 
porarily, incipient schemes for a secession of New 
England from the Union. f lie was at the zenith 
of his power, but the ISTemesis that dogts the footsteps 
of good fortune Avas haunting him almost as closely 
as though he were the hero of a Greek tragedy in- 
stead of the most typically modern and unsuptn-- 
stitious man of his generation. 

One session of the Eighth Congress remained to 
round out the Administration that hud ushered in the 



* Sf^e Apppiidix A. 

t A Fodornlist ])l(>t to dotach New England and New York 
from the Union was undoubtedly formed at this time, but 
received no encouragement. 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 39 

"Revolution oC J 800.'' Not a great deal of strik- 
ijigly important business was done, but that future 
congresses would have more to do was indicated by 
legislation dividing Louisiana into two territories 
and the Indiana Territory into an equal number. 
Race troubles had already originated in the former 
region, but an influx of American settlers would be 
sure to bring order out of chaos. In the latter, Wil- 
liam Henry Harrison, who remained Governor of In- 
diana after ]\fichigan had been set off under General 
Hull, concluded advantageous extinguishments of In- 
dian titles to land in accordance with Jefferson's hu- 
mane advice on the subject, and something was done 
in this way in the vast region which had been ceded to 
the Union by Georgia. This latter cession was not 
entirely advantageous, for the State had in 1795, 
througli a corrupt legislature, ceded to speculators 
a large tract knowMi as the Yazoo lands — an action 
Avhich was declared null and void by the succeeding 
legislature. Trouble of course ensued, and Madison, 
Levi Lincoln,* and Gallatin, as commissioners, ad- 
vised the reservation of five million acres in order to 
satisfy claimants — chief among whom was a New 
England land company. This did not quiet matters, 
however, and for several sessions Congress rang with 
violent charges of fraud and corruption preferred 
against !N^ew England moneyed men in general and 
Gideon Granger of Ci)nnectlcut, the Postmaster- 
General, in ])articular. The chief foe of the specula- 
tors Avas Jolin Randolph, who grew so violent that 
within a year Jefferson had to look to the ISTorthern 
Democratic-Re])ul)licans for a new leader of the 
House. Randol]ih w^as surely unbalanced, especially 
when he vented his spleen on Madison, who was no 

* Of Massachusetts — Jefferson's Attorney-General. 



40 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

speculator but only interested in effecting some sort 
of compromise; still it may be feared that even if 
he exaggerated when he said of his opponents, " They 
buy and sell corruption in the gross ; and a few mil- 
lions, more or less, is hardly felt in their account," 
he was laying the long, bony finger he was wont to 
use so effectively in debate, upon a plague-spot pecu- 
liarly natural to a commercial republic and one 
likely to sj^read dangerously in the future. We 
may dismiss the whole sorry business with pity both 
for the check Randolph's wild, if not insane conduct 
gave to his brilliant career, and for the numerous 
scandals that have characterised the use made by 
individual States and by the Union of the public do- 
main so graciously bestowed upon them by a bounti- 
ful Providence. 

Randol])h's loss of self-control in the Yazoo matter 
was one of the chief causes of his failure to succeed 
as prosecutor of Justice Chase, whose trial by the 
Senate was the most conspicuous feature of the close 
of Jefferson's first Administration. Chase had, in 
the trials of certain notorious Ilepublican editors 
under the Alien and Sedition Laws, proved himself 
a judge of the Jeffreys type, though naturally less 
noxious than that tyrant, and more recently had 
indulged in a political harangue to the grand jury 
at Baltimore that had brought down Jefferson's 
wrath and incurred the censure of moderate men. 
The President had seemingly suggested the idea of 
an impeachment of the old partisan — such a pro- 
cedure having State precedents in its favour and be- 
ing a natural complement of the repeal of the Feder- 
alists' judiciary act. But Jefferson had been astute 
enough not to allow his OAvn hand to be seen in the 
affair and, perhaps, to play on Randolph's vanity 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 41 

in order to induce him to assume charge of the prose- 
cution. Be this as it may, the House at Randolph's 
instance presented charges of impeachment in Janu- 
ary, 1804, and a year later the trial began before 
the Senate and was conducted as though it were a 
second Warren Hastings affair." It would be per- 
haps unjust to charge Randolph with trying to imi- 
tate Burke, but it is not unfair to say that he was by 
no means equal to the task he set himself. Oratory 
of an extravagant type could not make up for lack 
of legal acumen and failure to follow Jefferson's 
shrewd advice to rest the case on Chase's indecent 
political harangue at Baltimore. On not a singlo 
charge could the necessary two-thirds vote be ob- 
tained, and Chase went free. The trial is important 
in that it helped to show that it would not pay any 
party to make an open attack upon the judiciary — 
a fact which has led to the less aggressive practice of 
" packing the bench " with partisans — and that to- 
gether with the subsequent failure of the Burr trial, 
the abortive attempt to impeach President John- 
son, f and the decision not to proceed legally against 
Jefferson Davis and his colleagues, it shoAvs that it 
is almost imposisible to punish so-called political 
crimes in a free republic inhabited by an easy-going 
people secure in their liberties. Recent talk about 
the prosecution of leading citizens for treason, on 
account of their opposition to certain measures advo- 
cated by the Administration in power, is thus seen 
to be as much beside the mark as it would be in Eng- 
land itself. 

Jefferson's second inaugural reviewed briefly the 

* See Appendix A., article 1, sections S and 3; articles, 
section 4. 
t See Part HI., Chap. XVIII. 



42 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

leading features of the Administratiou just completed 
and propounded once more his well-known principles 
of government, which were ahout to be subjected to 
a severer test than he could well have imagined. Dur- 
ing the summer that followed disputes with Spain 
with regard to the boundaries of Louisiana, which the 
United States naturally desired to carry far enough 
east to include the important port of Mobile, led the 
pacific President to think of war, but what actually 
happened was that the war with Tripoli was brought 
to a happy conclusion. This little contest had now 
been going on for nearly four years, the small Ameri- 
can navy having done as well as it could under the 
circumstances. By accident the frigate Philadelphia 
ran on a rock and was captured along with her cap- 
tain, Bainbridge, and her crew. A daring expedi- 
tion into the harbour of Trii)oli enabled Lieutenant 
Decatur to burn the hulk of the American vessel 
to the Avater's edge, but this gallant exploit could 
not secure the release of the prisoners nor could the 
blockade of the town or the destruction of Tripolitan 
vessels move the Bey to accept a ransom. An adven- 
turous expedition planned and led by General Wil- 
liam Eaton finally effected the capture of the town 
of Derne in the interest of a dethroned brother of 
the Bey, and the latter potentate was thus induced 
to make a good treaty and to yield up his prisoners. 
If viewed as a whole the affair seems potty, it must 
be at least remembered that the young Republic 
emerged with more honour from her contest with the 
Barbary pirates than any Christian power had done 
for a long period. 

Meanwhile a great Christian power was doing 
America injuries which her own embarrassing posi' 
tion could not excuse. Great Britain, Avhich had 



* DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 43 

of late seemed quite friendly, suddenly changed her 
policy in a way that seriously affected the commercial 
prosperity of i^ew England and the Middle States. 
Since the signing of Jay's Treaty (1795), which 
had at first been so unpopular, American shipping 
had greatly increased owing to the fact that the 
United States was a neutral power and was thus able 
to carry goods to France and Spain from their West 
Indian colonies. The British fleet had swept the 
ships of its enemies from the seas, but the carrying 
trade which had been so profitable to Great Britain 
had practically passed to the Americans. Under 
tliese circumstances it is no wonder that Pitt upon his 
return to power should have been persuaded to apply 
to American ships what Avas known as " The Rule 
of 1756," which prevented a neutral from enjoying 
in time of war trading privileges not allowed in time 
of peace, or that Americans should have raised an 
outcry at his doing so.* The fact was that not only 
Avas there jealousy both in Great Britain and on 
the Continent at America's reaping prosperity from 
European turmoils, but there was a quite natural de- 
sire on the part of both belligerents to drag her into 
the contest as an ally. Tlie pacific Jefferson thus 
found himself in an awkward situation, which was 
destined to grow more uncomfortable as time went 
on. Meanwhile British vessels began to seize 
American in pursuance of the new orders, and the 
old impressment abuses were increased. 

Against these America had long protested in 
vain. The British theory was that a man could not 

* The rule was soon evaded, however, for French West In- 
dian products were brought to America and then reshipped 
to France as American products. Great Britain soon stopped 
this lucrative traffic. 



41 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

throw off Lis allegiance; on the other hand the 
American who had entered the British service could 
not obtain a discharge. Being mistress of the seas 
and not having yet conceived much respect for xVmer- 
ica, Great Britain proceeded to enforce her theory 
of inalienable nationality in a most exasperating 
manner. British war vessels would overhaul Amer- 
ican merchant ships and take off by force such pas- 
sengers or sailors as the British officers might de- 
clare to be either deserted British sailors — the claim 
urged at first — or British subjects by birth — the 
claim made when the need of seamen increased. As 
Americans spoke English, this rough and ready meth- 
od of procedure led to many mistakes which could 
only be partly rectified after great troid)le and loss 
of time. Every Administration had done its best* 
to bring Great Britain to some fair agreement about 
the matter, and in ISOo it looked as if Jefferson 
would have this success to add to his other claims to 
popularity, but the opportunity passed, and with 
the growing stress of the mighty war she was waging 
for the cause of liberty against the French despot. 
Great Britain became more overbearing than ever 
toward the young Republic. American harbours 
were watched and American vessels subjected to a 
high-handed treatment which seems almost incredible 
to modern ears. Yet in spite of the popular clam- 
ours and of his own indignation at the injustice done 
the land he so dearly loved, Jefferson still clung to 
his idea of balancing America between the bellig- 
erents and persuaded Congress to spend money on 

* Perhaps this is not striotlv true. America mitrht have 
done more to discourajce British deserters from tryina; to 
enter her navj'. See Henry Adams's treatment of the subject 
in his masterly History of the United States. 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 45 

gunboats for harbour defence which a less tractabh? 
body would probably- have insisted on devoting to 
the building of frigates. It is hard to defend his 
policy, but it is at least clear that he deemed it best 
to get rid of one dispute at a time and that he thought 
the opportunity good for acquiring the Floridas 
from Spain by purchase. 

Accordingly after sending the ^inth Congress, 
which opened early in December, 1805, a stronger 
message than usual, Jefferson transmitted a special 
message with regard to Spanish aft'airs which, if it 
had been received by a more excitable body, would 
almost surely have led to the war he did not desire. 
It was not improbably intended to arouse an indig- 
nation which would be appeased as soon as it became 
known that w^ar had been averted by a skilful piece 
of diplomacy. That his diplomacy miglit succeed 
from the start the President undertook in person to 
inform the Ways and Means Committee of the 
House through its chairman, Randolph, and another 
important member, that he wanted an appropria- 
tion of $2,000,000 '*' for extraordinary expenses at- 
tending the intercourse between the United States 
and foreign nations." But Randolph, who had been 
losing power in the House and temper with the 
President, especially as the latter seemed to be re- 
lying more and more on ISTorthern members and 
losing his State and sectional characteristics, posi- 
tively refused to father such indirect legislation, 
kept his committee passive, and proposed a distinctly 
warlike resolution in the House. Jefferson was, 
however, more than a match for his exacerbated fel- 
low Virginian. He explained his purposes to Bid- 
well of Massachusetts, who offered a substitute for 
Randolph's resolution. Tlie House sustained Bid- 



46 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

U'cll, and by the middlo of January, 1806, JofTcrson 
had been intrnsted v\-it,h the funds he had so in- 
directly asked for. It was a transaction that couhl 
not be often repeated with safety in a conntry desir- 
ous of maintaining its liberties; but, if Jefferson'^ 
methods smacked of tyranny disguised, his purposes 
were as pure and patriotic as could have been de- 
sired. The purity of his purposes, however, did not 
move the obstinate Spaniards, and he finally left 
his chair without having used the money he took 
such pains to secure. To parody the words of 
]\rilton — " Some money once he gained l)ut lost a 
man " — to wit, John Randoljih, who ever after was 
a free-lance in politics, overwhelming former friends 
and foes alike \vith the torrents of his unmatched 
invective. 

The Spanish business disposed of in the House, 
Jefferson sent in another confidential message on 
British affairs. It was by no means warlike in tone, 
although a conservative estimate placed the number 
of American seamen then detained in the British 
service at between 2,500 and r),000. But even under 
these trying circumstances the President's policy 
was to be found embodied in a resolution, intro- 
duced by another ^N^orthern Republican, Gregg of 
Pennsylvania, to the effect that importations from 
Great Britain should be suspended until she aban- 
doned her practice of seizing neutral vessels and of 
forcibly impressing American seamen. The amount 
of trade that would be affected by total non-im- 
Xwrtation was about $:^0,000.000 — "the policy would 
therefore hit Great Britain hard and might lead to 
war, while it would certainly make the American 
people restive. It was debated at considerable 
length in the House, Randolph outdoing himself in 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 47 

sarcasm, wliicli the measure certainly invited. The 
final result was a compromise by which the impor- 
tation of special articles only was prohibited, the 
act takins; elicct as late as November 15, 1806. Ran- 
dolph had a right to sneer at it, but his power in the 
House was gone, and he failed in his efforts to make 
a breach between Monroe and the President in order 
that the former might, as an anti-administration 
man who believed in more strenuous measures 
against Great Britain, frustrate Madison's chances 
of becoming Jeiferson's successor. 

More ambitious intrigues, culminating in a real 
conspiracy, astonished the country in the latter part 
of 180G. The restless Burr having been cast off by 
his party, having lost the governorship of iSTew York, 
having been ostracised for killing Hamilton, was 
in a mood for any desperate scheme to win power 
and additional notoriety. ISTew England could not 
be detached from the Union, but perhaps the West 
might, or at least an empire might be founded in 
Mexico by a man of sufficient boldness to imitate 
Napoleon. Already, as Vice-President, Burr had 
done little presiding over the Senate but had woven 
various intrigues, and after somewhat theatrically 
filling his post during the trial of Chase, he had 
taken a journey down the Ohio and the Mississippi 
to observe the state of the land. He got some en- 
couragement — or believed that ho did — from lead- 
ing Western men — especially from General Wilkin- 
son, Governor of Louisiana or, more properly, of the 
Territory of Orleans. To these men he made large 
promises of French, Spanish, and British support 
of his ])lans, but his chief sources of persuasion lay 
in his own daring and seductive personality. Over 
one man — an Irishman named Blennerhassett, liv- 



48 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ing ill considerable Inxury on an island in tlie Ohio 
Iviver — he exercised a fascination that was indeed 
deadly. L^pon this gentleman's estate men and arms 
for the romantic but absurd expedition were c<d- 
lected without sufficient precaution: for Jefferson 
learned of the affair, and despatched a si)y who 
caused the descent of a body of Ohio militia upon 
the scene. Meanwhile Wilkinson had determined 
to betray Burr, had made Xew Orleans, which the 
latter intended to take, impregnable, and had com- 
municated with the President. Late in December, 
]31ennerliassett, escaping from the Ohio soldiers, 
joined Burr at the mouth of the Cumberland, and, 
although the latter was now aware that his scheme 
was desperate, a start was made dow^n the Missis- 
sippi with a small flotilla and about one hundred 
men. At Xatchez Wilkinson's treachery became 
knowni, and the expedition was abandoned. Burr 
was captured in the ]\rississippi Territory in Feb- 
ruary, 1807, and sent to Richmond, Virginia, for 
trial ; Blennerhassett was taken later, and the folly 
of attempting an uprising in the interest of a single 
man in an extended and liberally governed country 
like the United States became apparent for all time. 
Burr's trial for treason, which took place late in 
the summer of 1807, was as much a fiasco as his ex- 
pedition had been. The Constitution required the 
proof of some overt act of levying war or giving 
aid to the enemies of the United States,"- and Chief 
Justice Marshall ruled both that the preparations 
at Blennerhassett's Island constituted no such act 
and that such an act must be proved before testi- 
mony could be taken as to Burr's intrigues. Thus 

* See Appendix A., article 3, section 3. 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 49 

the trial for treason collapsed, as did also a trial for 
misdemeanour. Finally the government gave the 
whole matter up, and Burr, after going abroad, ended 
his life in New York, a despised and obscure man. 
His escape from punishment was a source of vexa- 
tion to the President, who has been accused both ot 
slackness in putting down the conspiracy and of 
vindictiveness in endeavouring to influence the course 
of the trial. Both charges are partly true, but the 
first is minimised by his well-known and justifiable 
reliance in the loyalty of the people. With regard 
to the second cliarge it must be remembered that 
Jefferson did not love Marshall and that the latter 
did not altogether cover himself with glory in the 
trial. Still, as so often in such matters, the country 
profited from what was at best a shabby affair. JMar- 
shall's decision has made those political blunders 
or crimes known as trials for treason practically im- 
possible in the United States. 

The closing session of the Ninth Congress was 
naturally marked by excitement about the Burr Con- 
spiracy, which came near causing the passage of an 
unnecessaiy bill suspending the right of habeas 
corpus in a few cases; but on the whole nothing 
important was done save with regard to the foreign 
slave trade which, according to the Constitution,* 
could not be prohibited before January 1st, 1808. 
An act was now passed forbidding such trade under 
heavy penalties. The debates were not so acrimo- 
nious as they would have been a generation after, 
for the evils of slavery were much more frankly ac- 
knowledged by leading Southerners like Jefferson 
than was the case later when opposition to abolition- 

* See Appendix A., article 1, section 9, 



50 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ism and fear of slave revolts had caused the develop- 
ment of quite a pro-slaverv philosophy and propa- 
ganda. Still in several instances slight bursts of 
temper served to indicate the volcano over which the 
fabric of the general government had been reared. 




JOHN C. CALHOUN. 



THE WAR OF 1812. 51 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE WAR OF 1812. 

Although the second and, it is to be hoped, the 
last war between Great Britain and the United 
States did not actually break ont until after Jef- 
ferson had been three years in retirement at Monti- 
cello, the relations between the two countries became 
so strained from 1807 that we are warranted in 
treating in this chapter the closing half of that 
pacific President's second Administration. The be- 
ginning of the end was seen in March, 1807, when 
Jefferson determined not to submit to the Senate a 
treaty with Great Britain that had been provision- 
ally signed by Monroe and William Pinkney, the di^^- 
tingnished Maryland lawyer, in order to provide a 
substitute for Jay's Treaty which had expired. The 
American negotiators had exceeded their instruc- 
tions by signing without having secured any real 
abatement of the impressment abuse. They had 
found the British negotiators, who represented ;i 
transitional miiustry, inclined to make some slight 
concessions with regard to the neutral trade, and 
for the sake of these had agreed to the treaty, when 
suddenly the news of Xapoleon's famous Berlin De- 
cree creating a paper blockade of the British Isles 
prompted the additional demand that the TTnited 
States should agree to withstand French aggres- 
sions. Monroe and Pinkney naturally refused thus 
to commit their country, but they finally signed a 



52 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

treaty which left to Great Britain the option of do- 
ing away with her concessions should the United 
States not resist Napoleon's decree. Such a one- 
sided instrument was obviously not worth consider- 
ing, but Jefferson's rejection gave some show of 
colour for a new Tory ministry's subsequent haughty 
conduct. Great Britain's action in the matter de- 
serves censure, but her isolated situation in the 
splendid fight she was making against iSTapoleon 
must always be considere<l. It has been intimated, 
too, that she was justified in despising an Executive 
and a nation that relied on diplomacy instead of 
arms to win their rights, but this is only a veiled 
way of asserting the brutal doctrine that might 
makes right. 

The summer of 1807 saw matters come to a crisis. 
After some minor but exasperating experiences at 
the hands of British captains, the American navy 
and, through it, the American people were sub- 
jected to one of the most flagrant insults conceiv- 
able. On June 22, the United States frigate Chesa- 
peake, Commodore Barron, having on board three 
coloured sailors claimed to be British deserters yot 
in reality not such, was hailed by the British ship 
Leopard, under colour of an order from an admiral 
at Halifax, and, her commander refusing to muster 
his crew that the three sailors might be taken, was 
raked by a broadside from the Leopard, in conse- 
quence of which, not being in a condition to fight, 
she was obliged to haul down her flag after losing 
three killed and eighteen wounded. The news of 
this insult to the flag aroused the country as nothing 
else could have done, and althougli Canning at first 
disavowed the act, his subsequent tardiness in of- 
fering reparation left the sense of injury so deeply 



THE WAR OF 1812. 53 

implanted in the average American breast that noth- 
ing but war could wipe it out.'" 

It is impossible in the space at command to fol- 
low out more than a few of the chief threads 
of the diplomatic and legislative tangle in which 
Jefferson's well-intentioned Administration now be- 
came involved. !No friend of the human race can, 
indeed, Avi>;h to dwell upon a state of affairs credit- 
able to none of the parties concerned; but it should 
be remembered that in no way can the immense ad- 
vance made by the United States in the nineteenth 
century be better brought out than by a dispassionate 
statement of what the American ])eople were fated 
to endure at the hands of Great Britain and I^apo- 
leon betwen the years 1807 and 1812. 

Inmiediately after the outrage upon the Chesa- 
peake Jefferson issued a strong proclamation order- 
ing British cruisers out of American waters ; the de- 
fences of the leading ports were also increased. 
Congress, too, was called together several weeks in 
advance of the regular session. Xothing of impor- 
tance was done by it, however, until after the middle 
of December, for although it was perfectly disposed 
to follow the President almost blindly, that states- 
man was loath at first to abandon his peaceful policy 
of balancing America between France and Great 
Britain. But by November the former poAver had 
begim to enforce the Berlin Decree most harshly, 
having confiscated, on the ground that she. contained 
British goods, the American ship Horizon which 
had stranded on the French coast; and the latter 

* JefFerson wrofp : "An outrage not to bp borne has 
obligerl u«! to fly to arms, and has produced such a state of 
exasperation, and that so unanimous, as has never been seen 
in this country since the battle of Lexington." 



54 PROPRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

power bad issued certain Orders iu Coimcil which 
forbade neutral trade with France or her allies save 
through Great Britain. A month later Napoleon 
answered this high-banded response to his own high- 
banded decree by proclaiming from Milan that any 
vessel that allowed itself to be subjected in any 
way to British interference should be confiscated. 
Balancing was no longer possible between such 
belligerents. America had to decide whether f.u 
keep her ships at home or to arm them and send 
them out with the understanding that they would 
show fight when attacked. The latter plan nat- 
urally did not appeal to Jefferson — indeed with 
Great Britain's large navy and Napoleon's power 
to police the Continent it was hardly feasible — and 
he therefore proposed an embargo. 

Congress answered him with a celerity that is 
almost astounding. Such a measure was sure to 
cause great internal discontent if kept up for any 
length of time; it would require the armed exertions 
of the government to enforce it ; it bore more hardly 
on the trading North and East than on the agricul- 
tural West and South ; yet such was still the general 
confidence in the President's wisdom that his policy, 
which even he regarded as probably a preliminary 
step to war, went through with far less debate than 
was expended upon two investigations connected with 
Burr's defunct conspiracy. There was not even a 
great deal, of debate with regard to the necessary de- 
fences of the country, nor were the appropriations 
for this object at all sufficient. 

It is, of course, easy after the fact to point out 
the folly of this wai- of Decrees, Orders in Council, 
and Embargoes. Yet such was the frenzy of the 
times that it is difficult to argue with certainty what 



THE WAR OF 1812. 55 

America should have done. Both France and 
Great Britain had partisans in the country, and when 
■war did come later, it nearly brought about the seces- 
sion of i^ew England. A war in conjunction with 
Great Britain against France would have been sooner 
or later regarded as a war in the interests of the 
commercial Xorth, and might have alienated the 
South and West. An embargo might, after all, cost 
less in money than war, and would certainly cost 
less in lives ; and it would give time for something 
to happen that might bring the warring nations to 
their senses. However this may be, it is at least cer- 
tain that although the Federalists denounced the 
policy, many of the State legislatures gave it their 
approval. It v.-ill appear also from the sequel that 
the section on which it bore most hardly at first sub- 
sequently profited from it ; the reverse being the 
case with the South, which supported it. 

But it was a policy most difficult to enforce, espe- 
cially since the necessary coastwise trade between 
State and State was involved and gave room for 
frauds. The Canada and Florida borders tempted 
evasion of the law, particularly in the case of flour, 
and even upright merchants found it hard to see 
their trade falling from them without making some 
effort to induce the government to change its system 
of defence. But Jefferson persevered in spite of all 
remonstrances, while complaints grew louder and the 
Federalists gained strength in Xew England, where 
a few leaders like Senator Pickering used language 
suggestive of secession and actually intrigued with 
British envoys. It was a harassing and perilous 
time, yet at the presidential election in the autumn 
of 1808 Madison and Clinton were elected by a good 
majority over Pinckney and King, who had been put 



^C, PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

up a s^ccoud time. As Aladisou rcpresontcd JelTor- 
soii's policy, his nomination by tlio Kopublicans, in 
spite of intrigues in favour of Clinton and ]Monroe, 
and his subsequent election, showed that whatever 
the pliiiht America miiiht be in, her people did not 
visit the blame for it upon their favourite statesman. 
The chief feature of the tinal session of the Tenth 
Congress was the debate in the House on what has 
since been known as Campbell's Iveport. This rej)- 
resfuted the views of .Madison and of Gallatin, who 
was to be retained as an adviser, for Jeft'erson had 
no new plans to pi'opose and did not wish to hamper 
his successor. ^Madison wished to continue the Em- 
bargo until June 1st, 1800, and then to pass a total 
Xon-Intercourse Act relative to both Great Britain 
and the countries under Xapoleon's control, the act 
to be suspended in favour of the power first with- 
drawing its obnoxious decrees. This, it was be- 
lieved, would deprive Great Britain and the Federal- 
ists of their plea that American legislation was really 
intended to aid Xapoleon, who had smiled at the 
Embargo. If the new policy failed to work, then 
Madison was in favour of war with both powers, 
however rash such a course might seem to be. The 
debate on the report brought out the fact that the 
House was not yet ready for war. but preferred to 
continue the Embargo, though that was tantamount 
to the country's giving up its right to sail the ocean. 
It is easy to say that Congress was cowardly and that 
long acquiescence in a peaceful policy had made 
it so. But it is certain that Jelferson, who pri-^posed 
that policy, was much more of a humanitarian than 
of a coward, and it is not likely that the fathers and 
grandfathers of men who were ready enough to tight 
in the Civil War were cowards either. It is more 



THE WAR OF 1813. 57 

just to coiicliulc that events htul moved too strenuous- 
]_v and quickly for them to adopt a radically new 
policy at once. 

But now for some reason — perhaps to render war 
more certain — the new leaders carried a bill for 
making the working of the Embargo more effective 
by the employment of force. It was a drastic 
measure for a free people to stand, evien at the hands 
of their own legislators, and was bitterly oj)i)osed 
in New England. The IMassachusetts legislature 
actually justiiied the British Orders in. Council 
which had done so much to cause the Embargo, used 
language recalling that of the Virginia and Kcti- 
tucky Resolutions of 1 70S, and rebuked the Gover- 
nor of the State for employing the militia to enforce 
the obnoxious act according to the request of the 
President. In Connecticut Governor Trumbull 
would not detail militia ofHcers for such a purpose 
and convened a legislature which remonstrated as 
that of Massachusetts had done. This was in Feb- 
ruary, 1809, when Jefferson had but a few more 
days to serve. lie had entered ofHcc execrated by 
New 'England, had seen his principles triumpli 
there, and now through no fault of his own was end- 
ing as he had begun, an object of righteous indig- 
nation to the sturdy Puritans. Instead of the flat- 
tering testimonials he had been used to, threatening 
remonstrances and heartrending j^elitions were 
pouring in on him. The revenues he had so care- 
fully watched were falling sadly behind through his 
restriction of commerce, aiid, to crown all, the House, 
taking the alarm at the perilous state of the country, 
■would not consent to continue the Embargo till June 
1st, but decided that it must stop on March 4th, 
the day he retired from power. The final backdown 



58 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

was not so bad as this, for the Einbarg'o when raised 
on March 15 was still left to operate against France 
and Great Britain in the form of the Non-Inter- 
conrse Act, which forbade all importations from the 
two countries and closed the American ports to all 
their ships. But the humiliations he had been sub- 
jected to were sufficient to make the thin-skinned 
President glad to turn over to his pupil a task which, 
if it was not bejond his own powers, could not bo 
successfullv j)erformed in accordance with his life- 
long principles. 

Thus closed in gloom the public career of one of 
the greatest men America has given to the world. 
He was destined still to exert great influeiace through 
his corespondence and his counsels, but hit; executive 
work was over. This work has been variously esti- 
mated, but while it is clear that he was not so bal- 
anced a statesman as Washington and that his 
foreign policy failed ignoniiniously, it must never 
be forgotten that he belied the evil reports circu- 
lated by his enemies, that he eschewed sectionalism 
and tried to govern in the interests of the whole 
country, that he was Avise enough to set aside tecli- 
nical scruples and secure the immense domain of 
Louisiana, that he governed economically and on 
the whole prosperously for six years, and that in his 
final defeat he went down holding the flag of fair 
dealing and peace aniong the nations. Perhaps 
when the world has at last learned that war is not 
an integral part of civilisation but rather of bar- 
barism, a historian will be found bold enough to say 
that nothing in his political life became him like 
the leaving it.* 

* In a letter to Eppes of Sept. 11, 1813. Jefferson gave in 
one sentence the clue to his policy : " My hope was, that hv 



THE WAR OF 1812. 59 

111 many rcsppcts Madison was Jefferson's natural 
successor, apart from the fact that for many years 
their political principles had been much the same. 
With John Adams and Jefferson out of the way, he 
was the chief surviving statesman of tlie Revolution- 
ary period. He was not yet sixty and might there- 
fore be expected to use efficiently his wide experi- 
ence and his profound studios in the art and science 
of government. In the Legislature of Virginia and 
the Continental Congress he had made his mark, 
while yet a young man, by his prudence and hrs 
knowledge. lie had perhaps done better and more 
active work than any other man to frame and ex- 
])Ound the Constitutit)n and to get it accepted. He 
had served excellently as a leader in Congress, and, 
if he followed Jefferson rather than Ilainiltoii, lie 
therein showed himself to be not wanting in sym- 
})athy with the })eoplc. As Secretary of State he had 
acted with dignity and discretion, and having 
learned to obey, he might be supposed to have pre- 
pared himself to command. The sequel will show 
how far such a presuin])tion held, but it may be re- 
marked here, that Madison's character is a hard one 
to judge even after all these years. He approaches 
more nearly to the best type of British statesmen, 
learned, prudent, dignified, solid, than does any other 
American President; he has been liighly admired, 
}ierhaps on this very account, by certain American 
fitudents ; yeo it is possible to understand how Mr. 
Goldwin Smith could call him " a cultivated and 
somewhat prim mediocrity." This he was not — far 

giving time for reflection and retraction of injury, a sound 
calculation of their ow7i interests would induce the aggressing 
nations to redeem their own character by a return to the 
practice of right," 



60 PROGRESS OF THP: UNITED STATES. 

from it — but he was at least denied many of the 
qualities that strike and hold the imaginations and 
the hearts of men.* 

Madison retained Gallatin and three other mem- 
bers of Jefferson's last Cabinet, but he did not ad- 
vance the great financier to the portfolio of State 
as he had intended to do. This honour was re- 
served for the far less capable Robert Smith of 
Marvland, Jefferson's Secretary of the I^avj. 
Powerful family and political connections seem to 
have determined this appointment, and to have shown 
thus from the start Madison's inferiority to his pre- 
decessor. At first, however, he appeared to many 
people throughout the country to be a superior ex- 
ecutive. Great Britain seemed for a moment dis- 
posed to recede from her pretensions, and her envoy 
Erskine, who had liberal proclivities and an Amer- 
ican wife, hurried through negotiations, looking to a 
tem})orary withdrawal of the Orders in Council and 
a corresponding cessation of the l^on-Intercourse 
Law, as well as to a proper settlement of the Chesa- 
peake matter. Madison did not realise that Erskine 
was exceeding his instructions, although Jefferson, 
accepting the good fortune, warned him against be- 
ing too hopeful. f A proclamation at once informed 
the people that on June 10 non-intercourse with 
Great llritain would cease to Ix! obligatory. Great 
rejoicings ensued, and the Eleventh Congress met 
in special session in May feeling that war was now 
far off. They did little besides providing appro- 
priate legislation for the new policy toward Great 

* Jefferson wrote of him in 1810 as " my successor, who to 
the purest principles of republican patriotism adds a wisdom 
and a foresight second to no man on earth." 

t See his letters of April 19 and 27, 1809. 



THE WAR OF 1813. f;i 

Britain and for strengthening liarbour and frontier 
defences, which they hoped wonld not soon be 
needed. 

Those being days of slow sailing ships, New Eng- 
land and the Middle States had time, not merely for 
rejoicing, but for getting their vessels started off 
for hypothetical ly prosperons voyages before the 
news came that Canning had disavowed Erskine's 
negotiations. All was chaos once more, and when 
the new British Minister, eTackson, actually charged 
Madison and his advisers with having known 
that Erskine was going beyond his instructions, there 
was nothing to do ))ut to refuse to hold further com- 
munication with such an insulting envoy. Yet so 
attached were the Federalists to British interests that 
Jackson was actually entertained by them as he 
passed through New England. Meanwhile Mad- 
ison was left to tlie unpleasant knowledge that the 
lifting of the Embargo and the subsequent legislation 
had let loose American ships, which were constantly 
being confiscated. He was also made aware that 
his Administratif)!! was responsible for having made 
shippers run all risks for the sake of the heavy pi'ofits 
attending illicit trade — ^with the result that a return 
to the policy of restriction had been rendered ex- 
tremely difficult, ITe must have recognised, finally, 
that the recent legislation had hampered and post- 
poned preparations for the war that now seemed 
almost inevitable. His superiority to the Jefferson 
who continued to advise him was not so apparent 
after all. 

Tt became less apparent still Avhen that master of 
craft, Napoleon, began fresh intrigues in the summer 
of 1810 after the bewildered Eleventh Congress, 
having refused to accept certain commercial restric- 



62 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tions upon England and France contained in what 
was known as " Macon's Bill No. 1," had passed 
that indignant statesman's putative '' Bill ISTo. 2," 
which gave up the long struggle for neutral rights 
and provided only that if either Great Britain or 
France ceased its attacks upon American commerce, 
the United States would revert to non-intercourse 
with the power continuing its oppressive policy. 
The French despot saw clearly that unless he took 
America at her word, revoked his decrees, and thus 
made non-intercourse with Great Britain once more 
operative, British merchants would use every available 
American merchantman, as they had already used 
the daring ones, to land goods on the Continent. Tie 
had not long since, indeed, shown his real animus 
toward America by liis Rambouillet Decree of 
March 23, 1810, which authorised the seizure of all 
American ships in Frencli ports or in those of coun- 
tries occupied by French forces. Over one hundred 
and thirty vessels had been seized under this decree, 
and these he determined to confiscate even while v/rit- 
iiig to the Duke of fadore a letter in which he prom- 
ised that, in view of " Macon's Bill No. 2," he would 
revoke tlie Berlin and Milan Decrees from Novem- 
ber 1, 1810, it being understood that the British 
would revoke their Orders in Council or that the 
TTnited States would resume non-intercourse with re- 
gard to tlie Island Kingdom. 

Whatever might bo thought of Napoleon's sincer- 
ity by Madison and his counsellors, there was noth- 
ing for them to do but to notify Great Britain of that 
worthy's action and to request a withdrawal of the 
obnoxious Orders. But although there had been a 
change of ministry, the American demands fell on 
deaf ears. So Madison issued a proclamation giv- 



THE WAR OF 1812. 63 

ing three months' warning of the non-intercourse 
with Great Britain. Congress, after considerable 
debate, legislated to the same effect in March, 1811. 
Meanwhile European complications had done one 
good turn for the country. West Florida, which 
Spain still held, was, like that nation, divided into 
revolutionists and loyalists, and was in such a state 
of confusion that it seemed best for the United 
States to occupy the territory before France or Great 
Britain interfered. Madison therefore authorised 
the Governor of the Mississippi Territory to take 
possession under the Louisiana Purchase. Congress 
subsequently approved this step and authorised the 
President to seize East Florida — an acquisition 
which was to come a few years later. The Territory 
of Orleans, which petitioned at this time for admis- 
sion to the Union, profited by the occupation of 
West Florida, for when it was admitted the next year 
(1812) as the State of Louisiana, its bounds were 
extended to their present dimensions. Thus a nev/ 
State destined to figure in the coming war was added 
to the Union, wliich had three years earlier carved 
out of the Indiana Territory a new territory known 
as Illinois. Yet the westward growth of the nation 
still disturbed the Federalists, and at this very junc- 
ture gave occasion to the now famous speech of 
Josiah Quincy, a representative from ^Fassachusetts, 
in which he declared that the admission of Louisiana 
would " free the States from their moral obligation," 
and, as it would be the right of all, so it would be 
" the duty of some definitely to prepare for a separa- 
tion, amicably if they could, forcibly if they must." 
This speech did not augur well for America's success 
in war, but neither did the action of the Democratic- 
Republicans at the close of the Eleventh Congress 



64 PEOGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

(March, 1811) in refusing to recharter the National 
Bank that Hamilton had established twenty years 
before. There were, as we shall see, legitimate 
arguments to be brought against such a powerful 
institution, but they should not have been urged on 
the eve of a war, when the government needed all the 
iinancial help it could secure. 

The adjournment of Congress was followed by a 
change in the Cabinet, Smith being forced from the 
State Department on account of his connection with 
some troublesome intrigues in the Senate. He wa;^ 
succeeded by Monroe, who strengthened the influence 
of tlie " war-hawks," as the advocates of a war with 
Great Britain were called. The growth of this in- 
fluence was not impeded by the negotiations of the 
new British Minister, Foster; for the reparation he 
could make for the Chesapeake outrage was too tardy, 
and liis arguments against Napoleon's sincerity 
were met by the fact that that crafty personage had 
at last released certain American ships, while the 
British had done the reverse. The war fever was 
further increased by an accidental encounter be- 
tween the American frigate President and the Brit- 
ish sloop of war Little Bolt, in which the latter got 
the worst of it, and by Governor William Henry 
Harrison's campaign against the North- Western In- 
dians, whose able leader, Tecumseh, had been stirring 
them up for years. It seemed clear that this strug- 
gle, which was ended by a victory over the savages 
on the Tippecanoe Biver "" in November, 1811, had 
been in part at lea-^t incited by British intrigues. 

The Twelfth Congress, which assembled a month 
earlier than usual, Avas soon seen to be a body bent 

* Tecumseh was not in tliis battle. He subsequently fought 
against the Americans in Canada and was killed. 



THE WAR OF 1812. 65 

on war. Many new and young men had been sent, 
and the choice of Henry Clay of Kentucky as 
Speaker showed that the vigorous West was coming 
into power. John C. CUilhoun of South Carolina 
also made his mark during this session as a war 
man who believed in asserting the national spirit. 
Of the characters of these leaders there will be room 
to speak hereafter; at present we must follow the 
swift course of events. The House Committee on 
Foreign Relations reported in a way that meant 
war and nothing else, and bills were soon passed 
increasing the navy and authorising the President 
to call out 100,000 militia. The Federalists, aided 
by John Randolph, tried in vain to stem the torrent. 
Gallatin, after somewhat abetting the new spirits, 
grew alarmed and pointed out that the loans that 
would be needed would necessitate internal taxes, if 
interest was to be met. The war men were not 
daunted, for a large part of the country was behind 
them. They were further helped by disclosures 
made by a certain John Henry, to the effect that in 
1809 he had been sent into ]SJ"ew England by Sir 
James Craig, Governor of Canada, in order to sound 
disaffected politicians as to the chances of the 
Eastern States breaking from the Union. Such a 
mission, especially if it coinpromised British minis- 
ters, would naturally arouse the greatest indig- 
nation. 

Meanwhile the President sent in no war message, 
for he was at heart a man of peace. But a new 
nominating caucus must soon be held, and it was 
obvious that the next President must be one who 
would satisfy the war men. The story runs that be 
was actually coerced into accepting Clay's policy of 
a short embargo to be followed by war, as the onlv 
5 



66 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

means by which he could obtain the renomination 
he naturally desired. Put thus baldly the trans- 
action hardly seems credible in view of Madison's 
character; but it is quite reasonable to suppose that 
his tendency to indecision was cleverly played upon, 
and it is clear that he had committed himself before 
he was nominated.* An embargo for ninety days 
was pushed through, a proposal to send the moderate 
Bayard to England as an envoy was dropped, and 
on June 1, 1812, the war message was sent in. By 
June 18, after secret debates, Congress passed a bill 
declaring war against Great Britain, and Madison's 
proclamation announced it the next day. A few 
days later, owing to ministerial changes and to her 
growing burdens, Great Britain abandoned the 
Orders in Coimcil — the chief cause of the war; but 
although the news reached America before hostili- 
ties had fairly begun, and although fresh evidence 
of ]!Tapoleon's duplicity made it seem hard to be 
fighting his battles, the Administration felt that the 
conflict must go on, especially as Great Britain of- 
fered no hope that the impressment abuse would 
be checked. 

The results of the war now begun, as will be 
shown in the next chapter, were on the whole ad- 
vantageous to America ; but these were hardly fore- 
seen, and it seems clear that the American people 
should look back upon the struggle with mixed feel- 
ings. It was a belated war, for it should, consist- 
ently, have followed the abandonment of Jeffer- 
son's policy. It was partly at least brought about by 
Napoleon's shrewdness, and it certainly might have 
prolonged his despotism had he not attacked Kussia. 

* Benton thought that Monroe's counsels decided Madison. 



THE WAR OF 1812. 67 

It was begun with no adequate preiDaration, whether 
military, naval, or financial, and with a very ludi- 
crous confidence in the ability of i-aw troops to over- 
run and hold a country like Canada. Finally, it 
was begun without a due regard for its political 
consequences, since a vigorous policy in the early 
camiDaigns on the part of the British might conceiv- 
ably have brought about the loss of JsTew England to 
the Union. In short it illustrates American good 
luck rather than American good sense, a statement 
which might, perhaps, be made about every war the 
Republic has engaged in since JefPerson's petty 
struggle with the Barbary States. 

Space is lacking for any elaborate account of the 
campaigns undertaken. The invasion of Canada 
under General Hull, of JMichigan, was a dismal 
failure. He was no match for the Canadian, Gen- 
eral Brock, who drove him back to Detroit, where 
he surrendered ignominiously (August, 1812). A 
subsequent attack at Queenstown led to the death of 
the brave Brock but to little else, for here again the 
American commanders were inefficient. Operations 
along the St. Lawrence were equally futile and 
showed how difficult it would be to secure militia 
from i^ew England, where governors were refusing 
to furnish their quotas, so unpopular was the new 
war. But while the year 1812 brought little save 
disaster on land, it practically turned a new page 
in the naval history of the world. 

It was the government's intention to use its few 
ships mainly for the purpose of guarding the most 
important ports, but before the summer was out 
events had forced the abandonment of a policy 
which on its face seemed a prudent one. On 
August 19th, the frigate Constitution, Captain 



68 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Hull, which had taken refuge in Boston from a 
British squadron and had then sallied forth in 
search of adventures, met the enemy's frigate Guer- 
riere in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The American 
ship was a little stronger than her adversary, which 
had been notorious for exercising the so-called right 
of search, but there v\^as no reason to expect that she 
would disable her opponent in half-an-hour. Wlien 
the Guerriere struck, she was helpless and had lost 
nearly eighty of her crew, the Constitution being 
almost unhurt. A few weeks later the British brig 
Frolic struck her colours to the American sloop of 
war Wasp after a very similar contest. As a matter 
of course the English were astonished. They had 
in many ways shown that they considered the Amer- 
icans to be an inferior people — an absurd idea since 
at this time the United States were populated in the 
main by British stock — now their own naval pres- 
tige had been shaken in a way that made it impos- 
sible for a nation loving valour and fair play not 
to admire the foes it had hitherto despised. As for 
the Americans their joy was unbounded and they 
gave vent to it in exuberant celebrations. Two other 
naval duels before the end of the year showed that the 
two first victories had not been mere accidents. The 
frigate United States, commanded by Decatur, the 
hero of the Barbary War, defeated the frigate 
Macedonian in two hours ; and the Constitution, now 
under Bainbridge, since to give all officers a chance 
of distinction tlie few ships owned by the govern- 
ment had to bo assigned and reassigned, met the 
Java off the coast of Brazil and destroyed it. In 
all these contests, save that between the Wasp and 
the Frolic, the American ships had carried more 
guns; but analysis has shown that the results were 



THE WAR OF 1812. 69 

mainly due to larger charges of powder and to better 
American marksmanship. Congress immed'iatelv 
authorised the building of new ships, but of course 
the immense British navy did not w^ait to fight more 
duels, but swept American merchantmen from the 
ocean. American privateers replied in kind, even 
darting down on British ports, and in their exploits 
the people found satisfaction after the America] i 
Chesapeake had fallen to the Shannon (June 1, 
1S13) and the small navy was practically cooped up 
in ports. 

It was unfortunate that, as in the Civil War, a 
presidential election took place during hostilities. 
In both cases, however, the Administration remained 
unchanged, to the great advantage of the country. 
Madison and his new colleague, Elbridge Gerry of 
Massachusetts, had rather formidable rivals in De 
Witt Clinton of N'ew York, nephew of the late Vice- 
President and a shrewd politician, and Jared In- 
gersoll of Pennsylvania, for there was much dissen- 
sion in Eepublican councils, and the Federalists, in 
their eagerness to oppose tlie Administration tliPt 
had begun the war, intended to support the mal- 
content Republican, Clinton. But Madison was 
finally elected by a good majority, and this danger 
l)assed just before a greater arose in the downfall 
of j^apoleon, which left Great Britain free to con- 
centrate her strength against America. Meanwhile 
the Administration triumphed over its opponents in 
the Twelfth Congress and secured legislation im- 
proving the army, particularly in the matter of 
raising regiments of regulars to do the work for 
which the militia had showm themselves unfit. The 
War and ISTavy Departments w^ere also placed in 
presumably more competent hands. 



70 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Early in 1813 Itussia, whose Czar was America's 
friend, offered to mediate. Madison, no lover of 
war, immediately sent off Gallatin and Bayard to 
supplement John Quincy Adams, who had recently 
been filling at St. Petersburg an important mission 
which Congress with unwise economy had for some 
time refused to establish. Gallatin was glad to get 
away from a depleted Treasury, but he left an unfit 
successor. The Thirteenth Congress, called together 
in May, 1813, Avould also have been glad to give the 
Treasury the slip, but money is the sinews of war, 
and M'illy-nilly they established a direct tax and a 
system of those internal duties, including a stamp- 
tax, Avhich Jefferson had hoped to get rid of for ever. 

Taking up the thread of military operations once 
more, Ave find that the efforts of the Western militia 
under William Ilenry Harrison to recapture Detroit 
and retrieve American honour had not been as yet 
successful. While serving for a short time in the 
Senate previous to his willing transfer to the House, 
Henry Clay had remarked in debate: "I trust I 
shall not be deemed presumptuous Avhen I state that 
I verily believe that the militia of Kentucky are 
alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Can- 
ada at your feet." * The zealous Westerner had not 
meant to imply any disparagement of the militia of 
other States, l)ut he had certainly overrated the ca- 
pacity of his brave fellow-citizens. Many a gallant 
Kentuckian fell in the ambush suffered by Winches- 
ter's troops near Frenchtown, Michigan, whose in- 
habitants had been threatened with a British and In- 



* Jefferson wrote in August, 1813 : "The acquisition of 
Canada this year, as far as the neighbourhood of Quebec, will 
be a mere matter of marching, ..." 



THE WAR OF 1813. Yl 

dian raid. The conduct of the enemy under Colonel 
Proctor was such, however, that no discouragement 
could prevent Harrison and his men from holding to 
their purpose of retaking Detroit. This they finally 
accomplished in the fall, having been materially 
aided thereto by the notable victory gained by the 
American squadron under Captain Oliver H. Perry 
over the British fleet on Lake Erie. All that Hull 
had lost was thus regained, and Clay could now boast 
that his Kentuckiaus had helped to gain temporary 
possession of a portion of Upper Canada. 

Meanwhile the main movement intended against 
Central Canada had been diverted to the Niagara re- 
gion and had accomplished little more than the de- 
struction of property at York, now Toronto, v/hich 
was later to be urged as justification for the 
destruction of public buildings, at Washington. 
It was not worth while to seize territory with- 
out an army large enough to hold it. The 
replacing of General Dearborn by General Wil- 
kinson and the presence of the Secretary of War, 
Armstrong, on the scene led to nothing but the same 
sort of confusion to be observed later from the same 
causes in the Civil War. Finally the burning of the 
village of Newark by the Americans and the conse- 
quent British retaliations gave a disgraceful close 
to the campaign. 

Meanwhile, after an occupation and subsequent 
evacuation of a portion of East Florida, the Admin- 
istration found itself with an Indian war on its hands 
in the South- West. This was with the Creeks, who 
had been stirred up by Tecumseh and had been fur- 
ther aided by Spanish and British officers. Their 
horrible massacre of whites at Fort Mims (August 
13) was avenged by their defeat the following spring 



72 PROGR?]SS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

fit the liaiuls of Tennessee and j\Iissis8ipi)i militia 
led by Andrew Jaekson, who thus laid a solid founda- 
tion for his speedy rise to fame. Such a victory 
could not, however, make Americans forget the out- 
rages committed by Admiral Cockburn's fleet along 
the Atlantic coast — outrages which no American 
ships could be found to repel. 

Congress and the Administration struggled with 
their difficulties well into the spring of 1814, without 
being able to do much to bring order out of chaos. 
Short-term enlistments were abandoned, but compo- 
tent officers were not to be obtained by legislation. 
Fresh loans were authorised and an embargo was 
passed in order to prevent illicit trade with the Brit- 
idi — but this un])o])ular measure was soon dropped 
in consequence of the news of Xa])oleon's collapse 
and of an intimation that Great Britain would be 
willing to treat with the United States. Toothing 
might, indeed, come of these negotiations, although 
Jvussia's influence had been telling in America's fa- 
vour; it was (juitc clear that with Napoleon out of the 
way. Great Britain could easily concentrate her im- 
mense strength and prosecute the war more vigor- 
ously ; but perhaps hcv interests would lie rather in 
the reorganisation of Europe, and at least it was wise 
to des])atcli commissioners. Henry Clay and Jona- 
than Bussell were therefore sent to join Gallatin, 
John Quincy Adams, and Bayard at Ghent. 

The figliling in and about Canada this year (181-1) 
was fortunately under the direction of a competent 
general — Jacob Brown of 'Kew York, and American 
arms were not disgraced, although little was accom- 
]iHshed. At Tundy's Lane the assaults of the Brit- 
isli regulars, now being sent over in considerable 
numbers, were gallantly withstood. Later, a fine 



THE WAR OF 1812. 73 

victory by Macdonouf^h on Lake Cliamplaiii * foilctl 
British plans in that quarter, and the net results of 
the season's fighting were about even. A strip of 
Maine had been taken, however, and Cockburn had 
again thrown the coast towns into a state of panic. 
By August the British demonstrations in the neigh- 
bourhood of Chesapeake Bay were quite formidable, 
and Washington was endangered. Inadequate prep- 
arations having been made for its defence, and 
the raw American troops having fled at Bladensburg, 
General Ross entered the capital with several thou- 
sand men. A wanton destruction of public build- 
ings followed under Cockburn's own instructions, 
the alleged retaliation for American misconduct in 
Canada being carried much too far. But with a 
country of such local independcjnce as America, the; 
destruction of the capital, though exasperating, could 
mean little in the way of demoralisation, as the Brit- 
ish discovered when shortly after deserting Wash- 
ington they attacked Baltimore and were repulsed 
after spirited fighting. Indeed one of the chief 
effects of their raid was beneficial to the Americans, 
for the incompetent Secretary of War, Armstrong, 
Avas forced to resign in favour of ^fonroe, who had 
kept his head at the time of the capture, and who, 
as events proved, was capable of running two depart- 
ments at once. 

Thus far the war, as conducted on land, had l)een 
more or less contemptible; the same thing may be 
said of the political situation, both national and 
local. Congress assembled early in the dismantled 
city only to find the nation's finances in a deplorable 

* Governor Tlieodore Tloosevelt, in his Naval War of 181!2. 
payrs that Commodore Thomas MacdononRh was the greatest 
figure in American naval history down to the Civil War. 



Y4 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

state. Specie bad gone abroad to pay for Britisb 
manufactures, or was locked up in JSTew England 
banks, wbicb refused to belp the government; and 
in the rest of the country banks had suspended pay- 
ment. !Now again, however, a partial relief was had 
by the substitution of an able financier for an 
incapable Secretary of the Treasury,* although the 
movement of New England toward secession, which 
will be described in the next chapter, still made 
affairs seem gloomy enough. To add to the dismay, 
it was known that a strong British force was ap- 
proaching ISTew Orleans, though it was also known 
that Andrew Jackson would be there to meet the in- 
vaders. 

The British fleet, which carried about 10,000 
troops, including some of Wellington's veterans, 
easily landed them, and they were within a few miles 
of 'New Orleans by December 23. Jackson had 
meanwhile thrown up strong defences and had well 
in hand his 5,000 men, most of whom were back- 
Avoodsmen and expert with the rifle. He harassed 
the enemy by opening fire on their camp, and 
when later they prepared to advance, he was well 
posted and damaged them severely with his artil- 
lery. Sir Edward Pakenham, his opponent, per- 
ceiving the great difficulty of the enterprise, now 
waited for heavy guns, but wlion these came up, 
they were silenced by the American fire. Then 
on January 8th, 1815, having been reinforced, he 
attempted to carry Jackson's line by storm. But 
the bravery of his men only made their slaughter 
more frightful and certain. The backwoodsmen 
sent volley after volley Avith fatal effect from behind 

* Alexander James Dallas, born in Jamaica, afterwards a 
lawyer in Philadelphia. 



THE WAR OF 1813. 75 

their breastworks. Pakenliam was killed, and Avhen 
General Lambert ordered his troops off, at least 
2,100 British had fallen, killed and wounded, to 
thirteen on the part of the Americans."^ It was not 
only a complete victory; it was proof that democ- 
racy f fighting on its own soil, with its own weap- 
ons and under its own leaders, was practically in- 
vincible. 

To the American people the battle of Xew Or- 
leans was a godsend. It atoned for Detroit, Blad- 
ensburg, and Washington, and showed that Ameri- 
can soldiers were Avorthy to stand beside American 
seamen. Yet so far as the war was concerned it 
was a needless battle, for on December 24th peace 
had been concluded at Ghent. The British had 
made excessive demands at first, especially with re- 
gard to the treatment to be given their Indian al- 
lies ; and Adams and Clay had nearly bungled 
matters by their attitude with regard to fisliing 
rights, which concerned Xew England, and navi- 
gation of the Mississippi, Avhich concerned the West. 
But finally all differences were smoothed away or 
else postponed ; the issues that led to the v/ar were 
blinked, as some like the Orders in Council had 
ceased to exist and others like imi)ressmeiit were not 
likely to be raised with a people who fought so well 
at sea ; each country re&tored its conquests ; and 
the treaty was signed. 

* Figures vary sliglitly. 

t Democracy is naturally an ambiguous word, especially as 
it is used to embody and signify the principles of the Demo- 
cratic party. It will not be employed in the latter sense in 
this work. 



76 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER V. 

EFFECTS OF THE WAR. 

The members of the Thirteenth Congress dis- 
persed early in March, 1815, in a happy frame of 
mind. iSTo conscription would be required and the 
financial distresses of the country would in some 
way be overcome now that peace had been obtained 
and American ships could again track the ocean. 
A few weeks previously, however, another represent- 
ative body had dispersed in no such happy frame 
of mind. This was the famous Hartford Conven- 
tion, which met, under conditions of strict secrecy, 
in the Connecticut town on December 15, 1S14, 
and adjourned on the lltli of the following tlanu- 
ary. Of all the effects of the war none had been 
more unfortunate than the alienation of New Eng- 
land, which not only hampered the Administration 
but also furnished an important ])recedent in the 
expression of political disaffection that Avas des- 
tined to be cited later with powerful effect by the 
secession leaders of the South. Threats of disunion 
had indeed come already from the West; and in- 
dividual Stiites had talked of resuming such por- 
tions of their sovereignty as they had yielded to 
the general government ; Jefferson and Madison 
had piTihed the compact theory very far in their 
famous Resolutions of 179S-99 ; but no such step 
had hitherto been taken as the calling of a conven- 
tion to represent disaffected States, even though 



EFFECTS OF THE WAR. Y7 

their " obligations as mombers of the Union " were 
recognised in the call itself. 

We have already seen how commercial New 
England had resisted Jefferson's Embargo and 
Madison's iSTon-Intercourse Law, how the dominant 
Federalists had sided with Great Britain to the 
point of entertaining socially the minister who had 
insulted the President; how they had inveighed 
against the admission of Louisiana and the declara- 
tion of war; and how State executives had refused 
to put the militia at the disposal of the Administra- 
tion. Against these unpleasant facts must be set 
the further facts that the Republicans in the section 
struggled loyally to support Madison, and that in 
the matter of individual enlistments a very credit- 
able showing was made. Still, as the war pro- 
gressed, the Federalists got control of every New 
England State, and when the coalition" with De 
Witt Clinton failed and other States rallied to the 
Administration, they developed more fully the 
policy of isolation congenial to a Puritan people, 
among whom old and tried family influences and 
traditions were still strong. In 1813, the Massa- 
chusetts Legislature sent to Congress an emphatic 
remonstrance against the war, and declared against 
honouring public naval and military exploits 
not connected with home defence in the New Eng- 
land sense of that term. The next year, Madison's 
proposed embargo was the subject of another re- 
monstrance. Naturally this conduct aroused in- 
dignation throughout the rest of the LTnion, espe- 
cially as it was plain that for a long time Great 
Britain practically recognised New England as an 
ally by not ravaging her coasts. But the Admin- 
istration made the best of the situation, and after 



78 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

all it is clear that, if a gi'cnit Ilopiiblic of widely 
(livorsiiiecl interests will go to war, it iimst run the 
risk of sectional opposition, which, if it be denied 
expression in the press, on the platform, or in the 
inferior deliberative bodies, must in the end go far 
toward destroying all chances for true national 
unity. The federalists of New England were doubt- 
less mistaken men, but they were honest and had 
iheir rights. 

The government had its own rights, however, and 
when ]3ritish aggressions were made on the New 
England coast in 1814, it refused to pay the expenses 
of militia who were not put under the President's 
control. At this juncture Massachusetts nuide gn^at 
efforts to arm hers<>lf and called the convention at 
Hartford. (Connecticut and Ilhode Island appointed 
delegates', but Vermont and New ITampshire were 
represented unofficially only. The twentj-six mem- 
bers who finally assendiled were not disunionists of 
the extreme tyj)e of Pickering, who had ten years be- 
fore laboured for secession ; indeed it is claimed that 
some of them, like George Cabot of Massachusetts, 
Avho presided over the convention, were selected in 
order that they might keep rasher spirits back. Pe 
this as it may, Siccession was not the outcome of de- 
liberations with which it seems unlikely that the 
world will ever be familiar. The report submitted 
dcH'lared that '' States which have no common umpire 
must be their own judges and execute their own de- 
cisions " — language which South Carolina was soon 
to make the most of — proposed certain constitutional 
amendments as necessary for the protection of min- 
orities, and actually demanded that the States now 
aggrieved should be permitted to retain such customs 
dues as were collected within their owTi borders. 



EFFECTS OF THE WAR. 79 

Massachusetts and Connecticut accepted this report 
and sent commissioners to make the last mentioned 
demand — which obviously struck at the roots of all 
sovereignty — of a Congress then supposed to he in 
the worst of plights. Jjut the commissioners found 
Washington rejoicing over the news of peace and of 
Jackson's victory, and returned home sadder but 
wiser men. Federalism hardly ventured afterwards 
to raise its head, and the Hartford leaders became 
objects of popular suspicion and odium ; but, al- 
though disunion had been avoided, and although it 
soon seemed as if there were but one political faith 
held throughout the wliole country, a fatal precedent, 
as we have said, had been set — one all the more fatal 
because it had been set by men as honest and intelli- 
gent in the main as the friends of the Union who 
execrated them. 

We must now turn from political to financial and 
industrial matters. As we have seen, the country 
had gone into the war in an unprepared state. !Mat- 
ters were rendered worse by Gallatin's leaving his 
post — an act for which he cannot be blamed,as he had 
been made, partly on account of his foreign birth, 
an object of petty spite, especially in the Senate. 
He has been blamed, seemingly with justice, for 
having relied too exclusively upon loans to defray 
the expenses of the war, but it must be remembered 
that he had also hoped to be able to use a national 
bank in placing his loans, and that Congress was re- 
calcitrant in the matter of laying taxes to meet cur- 
rent interest. At any rate, whosever the fault, the 
government's financial policy was soon shown to be 
bad. The first loan was not secured with striking 
ease, and the loan of March, 1^14, was in its final 
figures nearly $9,000,000 less than the $25,000,000 



80 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

authorised, and this too was taken at rates varying 
from 80 to 95 per cent, in a depreciated currency. 
There was also an increasing resort to the expedient 
of interest-bearing treasury notes, and in the end the 
chief cities were found furnishing money on condi- 
tion that it should be used in their respective de- 
fences. Another unpromising feature of the situ- 
tion was the growth of State and private banks, whose 
uncontrolled issues led to inflation and to perplexing 
varieties of paper money. In short, Professor Henry 
C. Adams, the chief American authority on the sub- 
ject of public debts, seems quite justified in the 
strictures he has passed upon the entire financial 
management of the War of 1812. 

As to the actual cost of the war in money, con- 
servative estimates place it at about $200,000,000. 
Of this about $100,000,000 went to swell the public 
debt, which in 1816, as if to spite Jefferson, amount- 
ed to $127,000,000." In lives, the cost was about 
30,000, and yet outwardly the country was in 1815 
just where it had stood in 1812 ; for it will be re- 
membered that neutral rights had practically been 
secured before hostilities began. Still the consensus 
of popular and expert opinion has always been that 
the country really gained much more than it lost. 
Certainly the old colonial dependence upon Great 
Britain and the Continent was done away with, and 
there was a decided growth of a new national spirit. 
Political parties coalesced for the moment, but when 
they were once more differentiated, they stood for 
policies that were distinctly American. The national 
pride had been aroused by the splendid record of the 
little navy, and Jackson's victory had made the 
Alleghanies les?> of a dividing line than they had 

* Channing's Studenfs History, p. 368. 



EFFECTS OF THE WAR. 81 

been before. A new era of thought and literature 
began, the results of which were destined to be highly 
beneficial to a people whose provinciality both in 
ideas and in manners had been only too apparent. 
Equally important was the economic revolution 
effected by tlie war. Up to the time of the Embargo 
Americans had devoted themselves chiefly to agricul- 
ture and commerce, and to such mechanical arts as 
subserved these. Manufactures were little attended 
to because it was easier to export cotton, tobacco, and 
breadstuffs to Europe and bring back manufactured 
articles in exchange. Embargo, non-intercourse, and 
war put an end, however, to this Arcadian existence. 
Manufactures sprang up both because of public de- 
mand for them, and because capitalists had to have 
some new productive outlet for their wealth, as soon 
as the shipping industry was closed to them. At the 
end of the war it was found more profitable to con- 
tinue the new lines of enterprise, especially in re- 
spect to cotton, Avoollen, and iron manufactures, 
than to go back to the old industrial conditions.* 

But changes in the industrial sphere do not usually 
take place without corresponding changes in the 
political. It was undoubtedly beneficial to the 
country to develop manufactures, but the advantage 
was not clear when this development led, as we shall 
soon see, to a demand for increasing protection, 
which in its turn led to disaffection. That the 
country stood the strain to which it was subjected is, 
of course, true; but it is equally clear that the Em- 
bargo laid by a Southern president and supported by 

* Even the agriculturally-minded Jefferson could write in 
January. 1816 : " Experience has taught me that manu- 
factures are now as necessary to our independence as to our 
comfort." 
6 



82 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

that section, and the war nrgod on and maintained by 
West and Sonth, uUimately forced these sections to 
contribute to the wealth of Xew England and the 
Middle States in a way not dreamed of when hostili- 
ties ceased in 1815. That the contributing sections 
h.ave pi'ofited also from tlie immense growth and con- 
centration of wealth in Xorth and East, is not to be 
denied;* vet it is interesting to speculate what the 
history of the country would have been, had no un- 
natural impetus been given to manufacturing in a 
particular section. Perhaps things would have 
turned out luucli as they have done, hut it is con- 
ceivable that the tariff struggles soon to be described 
might have been dispensed with, and that at least one 
cause of those sectional diiferences that have weak- 
ened the Union down to the present day might thus 
have never come into existence. But Providence de- 
termined otherwise, and it r.ow behoves us to follow 
once more the political evolution of a people at peace. 
The Fourteenth Congress assembled at the regular 
time, in December, 1815, with a decided Administra- 
tion majority in both branches. The main ques- 
tions before it were naturally of a financial char- 
acter. From the Ti-easurv Department, Dallas 
advocated the chartering of a new national bank. 
After much discussion, in which Clay, Calhoun, and 
Daniel Webster were all found on the side of the 
bank, this institution was established with a capi- 
tal of $35,000,000, the government subscribing 
$7,000,000. Various restrictions were placed upon 
it and its charter was limited to twenty years, as had 
been the case with Hamilton's liank. It went speed- 

* Tliey profiteil also, esppcially tlip Wpst. by tlie einigra- 
tion from depi-essed New England which immediately fol- 
loweil the war. 



EFFECTS OF THE WAR. 83 

ilj to work to justify the foar^ of its opponents; for 
it disconnted notes of subscribers in order tbat thej' 
might pay their subsequent instalments ; but it also 
satisiied the expectations of its friends by forcing 
specie payments in a remarkably short time. The 
government, whose customs receipts in ISIG, owing 
io the sudden growth of importations from Great 
Britain, amounted to over $;3(),000,000, or five times 
as much as for 1S15, was enabled to pay in specie by 
January 1, 1817, and in jMarch of this year Monroe 
could with seeming justice refer in his inaugural 
speech to the " flourishing state of the Treasury," 
Avhich could plan to pay off $10,000,000 annually 
for the licpiidation of the public debt. 

In his message to the Fourteenth Congress, Madi- 
son had suggested, as Jefferson had before him, the 
propriety of securing an amendment to the Consti- 
tution in order to allow tlie general government to 
construct roads and canals, which would bind the 
country together both for commercial and for mili- 
tary purposes; he had also declared that manufac- 
tures would " likewise require the systematic and 
fostering care of the government " on the basis of 
the " infant industries " and " home marker, " argu- 
ments of which so much was soon to be made. Con- 
gress acted on the second suggestion first, and in 
April, 1816, passed a tariff Avhose highest permanent 
rate of duty was twenty per cent. This rate shows, 
as Professor Taussig has said in his excellent Tar- 
ijf Tlififon/ of ilir, U)iifcd Slates, that the act of 
1816 ranks with the earlier rather than with the 
later group of acts, and indicates no marked popular 
movement in favour of protection. It must be noted, 
how^ever, that although the manufacturers of cotton, 
woollen, and iron in the N"orth and East were behind 



SJ: PKOGKESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the iu<nciiu»nt for protection, many Soiitlierners, 
like Culliouu, fuvoiired it, \vhile Westerners, like 
Henry Clay, saw in it an efficient means of develo})- 
ing a home market for their hemp and wool. Such 
A'ew Enghiuders, however, as clung to shipping and 
M'ished to import goods in the vessels they owned, 
opposed the taritl", their views being voiced especially 
by Daniel Webster. Tiie South, nevertheless, soon 
had reason to range hiU'self beside John Randolph, 
who had reappeared in C\)ngress as a free-lance, in 
his opposition to even mild protection ; f(n' the intro- 
duction of the principle of minimum dutiot? on cot- 
tons and woollens speedily laid a prohibition on the 
im])ortation of tlie coarser gravies of these articles, 
and forced Southern ])laniers to pay more for the 
clothes worn by their slaves than they would other- 
wise have been compelled to do. 

With regard to the reduction of the army to a 
peace footing and the natural augnientation of a 
now distinguished navy, nothing need be said; but 
it is worth while to observe that, in the summer of 
1815, it became necessary to threaten the Barbary 
States once more. Algiers in particular had be- 
haved recklessly during the War of 1812, but on the 
a]i})oarance of a squadron under Commander Deca- 
tur, the Dey of that State at once signed a very satis- 
factory treaty, to which Tunis and Tripoli soon 
agreed. Thus down even t<i small particulars did 
^^Fadison's administrations round off those of Jeffer- 
son. 

Tn the spring of 181 G, the Republican Caucus 
chose ^fonroe as its candidate for the Presidency. 
His strongest rival was the able William H. Craw- 
ford of Georgia, soon to succeed Dallas in the Treas- 
nry. ^fouroe was personally popular and had as 



EFFECTS OF THE WAR. 85 

Secretary of War shown inilitary gifts that enabled 
him partly to satisfy the popuhir desire, which arises 
after every war, to try in civil life a man who has 
proved his capacity at the head of an army. Be- 
sides, he held by the llevolution as well as by the 
War of 1812, and if it seemed nnfair to select three 
\'irginians one after another, it was equally unfair 
to let such a consideration deprive the country of the 
services of a man who was not only the ablest candi- 
date in sight, but also one acce[)table even to New 
England itself on account of his former willingness 
to treat with Great Britain. Monroe, therefore, 
and Governor Daniel Tompkins of New York had 
no difHculty in carrying the cor.ntry by a very hand- 
some majority over Rufus King, to whom the Feder- 
alists did not give a running-mate — so obvious was 
the issue of the contest. 

The most interesting feature of the closing session 
of the Fourte(Mith (\)ngress was the debate and pass- 
age, by a close vote, of a bill fatliered by Calhoun, 
the object of which was to devote the l)onus and 
future dividends accruing to the government from 
the National Rank, to a fund for internal improve- 
ments, particularly in the way of roads and canals. 
This bill was in line with Madisou's suggestion of 
the year before — only (^ilhoun did not recognise 
the necessity of a constitutional amendment, finding 
in the so-called ''general welfare clause" of that 
instrument sufficient warrant for his proposed ex- 
penditure.* The line of reasoning taken by him 



* See Appen<lix A., article 1, section 8. The powers enu- 
merated in this section have been at the bottom of most of 
the political questions raised in American history. " Tvoose 
Constriictionists " have endeavonrerl to enlarge them; 
" Strict Constructionists " have resisted. 



80 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

was entirely inconsistent Avitli the principles of strict 
construction whicli he espoused later ; but there can 
be no question as to his sincerity in each position. 
lie had not yet looked so far ahead as John Randolph 
had, and seen that the j^rowth of the nation meant 
the doom of slavery, which could be preserved only 
in a Union of States, each of which had its consti- 
tutional rights secured to it in their entirety. Ilcnco 
he was not much affected by Randolph's three hours' 
speech* in opposition to the measure. But a more 
formidable opponent was found in the White House. 
Almost the last official act of Madison was to veto 
Calhoun's scheme on the ground of its unconstitu- 
tionality. A two-thirds majority could not be ob- 
tained for it,f and the old Cumberland Road, which 
was intended to open up the public lands in Ohio, 
remained for some time the only reminder of grand- 
iose schemes cherished by such differing men as 
Jefferson and Calhoun. The States individually 
took up the matter — De Witt Clinton in ISTew York 
securing the construction of the Erie Canal, which 
luadc JN^ew York City the undisputed metropolis of 
the land ; but this meant of course an uneven do- 
vclopmont of the country. The addition of Indiana 
as a State and the petition of the inhabitants of 
Mississippi for the same privilege showedj how- 
ever, that the country would grow strong, no matter 
what the policy of the government. The American 
pioneer Avith his adventurous spirit and his large 
family was well able to open up the land with very 
small aid from Washington. 

* This marvellous speaker Imd the year before spoken 
for three days on a certain bill, to the despair of the re- 
porters. 

t See Appendix A., article 1, section 7. 



EFFECTS OF THE WAR, 87 

Monroe's inaugural, like those of las predecessor, 
was an nninsjnred but eminently sane performance. 
He stressed the need of union and of an adequate 
army and navy, and he approved benevolently a 
moderate tariff, and internal improvements if the 
Constitution were amended. In other words, Mon- 
roe, having sobered doAvn, had laid aside the rash- 
ness Washington had once had occasion to censure, 
and had become a reliable statesman of the Jeffer- 
son school. As w^e have already seen, he had certain 
proclivities towards strong government that made 
him a favourite with the new-school Republicans 
and even with the Federalists ; we are therefore not 
surprised to find him perhaps the most popular of 
all the Presidents — especially as the death of Fed- 
eralism had left little party differentiation. 

But even if Monroe had been a less dignified 
and competent executive, his election would have 
been a good thing for the country. He carried the 
Virginia line of^ Presidents over the first quarter 
of the century, and it is not difficult to see how much 
this fact meant. Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe 
represented the popular party, but they also repre- 
sented the oldest State in the Union and the aristo- 
cratic traditions of the Revolution. Some years 
ago Mr. Gokhvin Smith, in his remarkably able 
volume entitled The United Staies, speaking of the 
influence brought to bear upon Madison just before 
the War of 1812, concisely declared: " W^e have 
come down from Washington to Madison." Such 
was actually the case, and it had to be. In such a 
country and under such a government the people 
had to rule. Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe did a 
great deal, though unfortunately not enough, toward 
teaching them how. If a man like Andrew Jack- 



88 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

son had been brought to power in 1801, perhaps the 
coiintrj might be suffering a good deal more to-day 
than it is from the accession of that worthy himself 
in 1829. Then again Jefferson, Madison, and Mon- 
roe represented the South, the most restive section 
of the Union and the one most jealous of any in- 
crease of the powers of the general government. 
Yet at the same time they increased those powers 
and worked heartily for the Union. If a Northern 
man had been President in 1808, it is not unlikely 
that the abolition of the slave trade might have 
caused a good deal more trouble than it did. Then 
it was just as well that Virginians, who w-ere in 
sympathy with the West, should have been in power 
when that section first began to be a factor in 
national politics. It may not be fair to take the 
Adams family as thoroughly representative of Xew 
England, but the fact remains that the two Admin- 
istrations dominated by that section, between 1789 
and 1829, give no warrant for believing that the 
period of Virginian supremacy could have been 
shortened Avithout loss to the country. 

The new President chose a strong cabinet, but 
did not have Jefferson's good fortune in the matter 
of unanimity of opinion and action. Ilis choice of 
John Quincy Adams as Secretary of State was 
wise, for Adams had had good diplomatic training 
abroad ; but it seems to have offended Clay, who 
refused the portfolio of war, finally given to Cal- 
houn, and in his position as Speaker of the House 
hampered the Administration in an exasperating 
way. It is quite clear that Clay would not have made 
as good a guide for foreign affairs as Adams, and it 
is also clear that his marvellously effective eloquence 
marked him out as a congressional leader w'hose 



EFFECTS OF THE WAR. 89 

figure is probably more picturesque to-day because 
it was only once subjected to the restrictions of 
routine work. The less picturesque, though more 
tragic figure of Calhoun, on the other hand, has not 
suffered from confinement to routine. He made an 
excellent Secretary, and attention to business as- 
suredly did not dim the powers of that logical 
faculty which distinguishes him from all other 
American statesmen. 

The only other public man whom it is necessary 
to name here besides the eloquent William Wirt, 
who had won a reputation in the Burr trial and now 
served Monroe as Attorney-General, was the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury, Crawford of Georgia. Craw- 
ford seems to have been an alien spirit in the Cabi- 
net, one bent on self-aggrandisement rather than 
upon the success of the Administration. He had 
a strong personality, and in the way he used patron- 
age to secure his own ends and to knit his friends 
to him for Aveal or woe, he ap})roached as near to the 
modern political boss as the state of the times and 
his own proved integrity permitted. Perhaps it will 
be nearer the mark to say that in his strong prac- 
tical brain, his capacity to fill excellently the vary- 
ing functions of Senator, foreign representative, 
cabinet officer, and judge, as well as in his ability 
to advance his own interests along with those of his 
friends, he presents a thorough type of the American 
politician as opposed to statesman in the highest 
sense of the word. 

The needed appointments having been made, Mon- 
roe, whose imitation of Washington has been often 
noticed, took a long trip through jSTew England, 
Xew York, and Ohio, primarily for the purpose of 
inspecting the new coast defences, and aroused en- 



90 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

thusint^in ^vllel•evel• lie went. The name t>ince ap- 
plied to his Administrations, '* The Era of Good 
Feeling," seems to have originated during this 
tour, and may be accepted, with some qualitications, 
as the heading of our next chapter. 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 9^ 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE EKA OF GOOD FEELIXG. 

MoiS'i?Oi/s first message to the Fifteenth Con- 
gress was quite an encouraging document. Foreign 
affairs were in a good condition save as regards 
Spain and Florida. The Treasury made such a fine 
showing that Congress might bo advised to rcjieal 
Ihe internal taxes — which they accordingly did. 
IModerate ]»rotection for manufactures was recom- 
mended, l)ut the President was clear in his own 
mind that, if int(M'nal imju-ovements were to be 
undertaken, a special amen.dment to the Constitu- 
tion nuist be secured. The only disquieting note in 
the message referred to the establishment on Amelia 
Island (near Fernandina, Florichi) :nid at Galveston, 
Texas, of nests of piratical adventurers who claimed 
to take possession in the name of the revolting State 
of Buenos Ayres, but \y\\o in reality owned no allegi- 
ance to God or man. A later message announced 
that American forces had taken the former jdace 
without bloodshed, and would probably have as little 
diilieulty with the latter. The matter was, of course, 
a delicate one, owing to the desire of the Admin- 
istration to secure Florida from Spain without a 
war, but such la^dess establishments just over the 
borders of slave States obviously could not be tol- 
erated. As Ave shall see presently, Monroe's efforts 



92 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

to avert bloodshed were fruitless, but he deserves 
great credit for the way in which he held the bal- 
ance even between Spain, a country which few 
Americans liked, and her revolting South Ameri- 
can colonies, which had the support of a people who 
had revolted themselves. This firm neutrality, 
which might have been imitated with profit more 
than once in later years, was all the more difficult for 
Monroe on account of the fact that the eloquence of 
Clay was put at the service of the revolutionists, 
sometimes, it would seem, to the distinct and intended 
detriment of the Administration. A very consider- 
able part of the time of the House was in fact taken 
up in discussing a proposal of the Speaker's that 
$18,000 should be appropriated for an outfit and 
year's salary for a minister to the United Provinces 
of La Plata — a proposal which was wisely defeated 
by a very large majority. 

Little specially notable business was transacted at 
this session besides the repeal of the internal taxes 
and of the still more obnoxious direct ones, but there 
Avas much talk about Spanish-American affairs, as 
well as about an attempt made by a certain John 
Anderson to bribe one of the members of the House. 
Anderson was finally reprimanded by the Speaker 
and discharged, neither the culprit nor the legisla- 
tive body being yet thoroughly familiar with the 
most approved methods of the lobby. Outside of 
Congress, however, there was a considerable amount 
of petty political manoeuvring, especially in IsTew 
York and Pennsylvania, but also in I^ew England, 
where the Democratic party was coming to the 
front and where the old alliance between Church 
and State, which had givQu support to the Federal- 
ists, was being broken down as it had been else- 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 03 

where.* There was likewise enough doing in a 
military way to keep the country interested. 

The Seminole Indians f in Florida had been giv- 
ing trouble for years as bandits and marauders 
and harbourers of escaped slaves. They were par- 
ticularly stirred up by the British Colonel Nichols, 
who actually planted many negroes and some In- 
dians in a stronghold called the " negro fort," not a 
great distance from the American border. It be- 
came necessary to reduce this in ISIO, and, in con- 
sequence of an explosion, a wholesale destruction of 
its inhabitants ensued. Other troubles soon fol- 
lowed, ending in a massacre perpetrated by the In- 
dians, and by the end of 1817 it had become ap- 
parent that a real war with the Seminoles would be 
necessary. The management of affairs was at once 
entrusted to the conqueror of the Creeks and the 
victor of Xew Orleans, Major-General Andrew 
.lackson of Tennessee, who immediately enrolled 
about 1,000 Tennesseans, and, gathering up forces 
already collected by General Gaines, swept over the 
Spanish line, burning Indian villages and finding 
little to oppose his progress. The President's orders 
had been explicit that care should be taken not to 
infringe Spanish rights, but Jackson had previously 
written Monroe begging to be allowed to secure 
Florida while he was wiping out the Indians, and 
he was not the man to construe his instructions 
narrowly. Meanwhile Monroe, v/ho, through sick- 
ness, had not read Jackson's letter with care, sup- 
posed that the Tennessean would behave with at 

* Manhood suffrage was the rule in new States, and was 
prevailing in older ones. In New England taxpayers could 
now vote and need not svipport any form of worsliip. 

f Really "wanderers" from the Creeks who had coalesced 
with other tribes. 



94: PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

least fair (li-^oi-otioii. Tt was a wild supposition. 
Jackson took St. j\[ark's, hanged two Indian chiefs, 
and drove the Seminolcs far into the swamps. Then 
he had two British subjects, Arbnthnot, a Scotch 
trader, and Ambrister, a military adventurer, both 
of whom had probably been implicated in the In- 
dian uprisings, tried before a court-martial, whii'ii 
sentenced the former to be hanged, the latter to be 
shot, but finally commuted x\mbrister's sentence on 
account of his youth. The stern commander, how- 
ever, could show no mercy to v.'hite men who allied 
themselves with those Indian foes wliom every true 
backwoodsman hated with a scarcely credible in- 
tensity ; and he accordingly had the sentences carried 
out on both, regardless of the commutation in the 
case of Ambrister. After this he learned that a 
Georgia militia captain had through false informa- 
tion been led to fire an innocent Indian village and 
butcher its inhabitants, and he forthwith demanded 
that the State officer be handed over to him for pun- 
ishment — a demand which the Georgia Governor 
naturally resented, but which showed that, even 
where Indians Avere concerned, Jackson had his 
standard of right and wrong, by which he would 
abide in " scorn of consequence." But even this did 
not close the remarkable campaign, for the impet- 
uous general captured Bensacola, seeminglj- for no 
other reason than that it belonged to Spain and 
would be acceptable to America, despatched Gen- 
eral Gaines to take St. Augustine, and then returned 
in triumph to Xashvillo before the summer of 18 IS 
was half over. 

There was, of course, a good deal of consternation 
at Washington when tlio full results of the cam- 
paign became known. True to his policy of neu- 



. THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 95 

tralitj, ]\[onvoe at onco oi'dorod tho surrender of the 
captured places, but he liked .lackson and under- 
stood him well enongli to be willing to shield him 
from the court-martial which C^alhoun, the naturally 
offended Secretary of War, advised. John Quincy 
Adams stood by Jackson manfully, both in the Cabi- 
net and in the corres^^ondence he conducted with 
Spain and wath Great Britain. On the whole, how- 
ever, the prudent President, who even managed to 
reconcile in part the high-strung Jackson to the un- 
doing of his work, seems to have shown the clearest 
liead in the whole tangled business. Spain and Great 
Britain were deftly handled, and the only serious 
notice taken of the matter was in the House at Its 
next session. Here a severe arraignment of Jack- 
son failed indeed to pass, Imt did not fail to make 
him very angry and still more popular with the 
masses. Another and more important result of the 
affair was that years later, when Jackson was Presi- 
dent, he was informed through Crawford that Cal- 
houn, instead of supporting him in the Cabinet, 
v^'ished to have him court-martialled. The breach of 
friendship that ensued ruined Callioun's chances as a 
national statesman, and helped to drive him along the 
sectional lines of policy that will be described later. 
Meanwhile as Jackson was already looming up as 
a possible successor to Monroe, it may be as well to 
say something about his character and to appraise 
liis recent actions. At the time of the Seminole War 
Jackson was fifty-one years old. Born a poor boy, 
of Scotch-Irish stock, on tlie border between North 
and South Carolina, he had early followed the stream 
of emigration to Tennessee, and there amid men as 
uncultured as himself had risen to every office, civil 
and military, that he cared for. He had all the vir- 



90 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tues of the backwoodsman — and they are many — • 
he had not a few of his defects, bnt very few, per- 
liaps none of his vices. Altogether he was a most 
favourable specimen of Western manhood, and in 
the main he represented also the best elements of 
the new democracy, wherever it might be found. 
Unlike his great predecessor Jefferson, he was a 
democratic leader not because he possessed intelli- 
gence and sympathy enough to manage the people, 
but because he answered their demand for a great 
man sprung from themselves. A great man he un- 
doubtedly was. He had an imconqucrable will, a 
genius for command, a complete devotion to truth 
and manhood, an unshakable loyalty to country and 
to friends, and a love of virtue, as he understood it, 
that counterbalanced his rashness, his vindictiveness, 
his lack of culture, in short his limitations as a 
backwoodsman. He was not meant to be a states- 
man, although his subsequent conduct as an execu- 
tive is still admired by millions of Americans; bur 
he was meant to be a great man, and as the party of 
Jefferson had to change leaders and methods, it is 
perhaps as well that the strenuous Tennessean should 
have been lifted from the masses in order to show 
the world that the mistakes of American democracy 
are always likely to be those of the head — which 
may be cured through education and salutary, if sad 
experience — not those of the heart. 

In taking leave of Jackson for a while, we must 
remember that his disavowed actions in Florida were 
really those of an honest patriot and that they did 
good to the country. In consequence of them it 
became quite obvious to Spain that slie had better 
part with Florida while the United States was in 
a humour to purchase, rather than run the risk of 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 97 

losing the territory through such encroachments as 
had been practised during Madison's regime, or 
such daring defiance of orders and of international 
law as Jackson had just been guilty of.* Accord- 
ingly early in 1819 a treaty was concluded by which 
the United States undertook to settle certain claims 
of American citizens against Spain, and the latter 
gave up all rights in the Florida territory. This 
treaty, which was not ratified until two years later, 
was also serviceable in fixing the boundary of the 
Louisiana Purchase along the Sabine, Red, and Ar- 
kansas Rivers to the 42(1 parallel, and then along 
this line to the Pacific. The securing of Ameri- 
can claims as far as the Pacific was important 
through the fact that the Oregon region was claimed 
by both Great Britain and the United States. Just 
the year before Monroe had postponed settlement of 
the matter by a treaty providing for joint occupancy 
by both countries. The new treaty extinguishing 
any claim of Spain north of the 42d parallel natur- 
ally strengthened American claims to Oregon, but 
settled that the region known as Texas should not 
be considered as part of the Louisiana Purchase. 
This sacrifice, for the time being, of a fertile country 
to which Americans had already begun to emigrate, 
seems to have been due to a desire on ]\Ionroe's part 
to avoid tlie sectional disputes sure to arise on the 
acquisition of such a large amount of territory from 
M'hich slavery could not easily be kept out — a dis- 
play of prudence for which ho deserves the praise 
that judicious historians like Mr. Sehouler have not 
withheld. f 

* In his campaign of 1814 against the Creeks Jackson liad 
also taken Pensaoola without orders. 

\ Jefferson and Benton opposed the giving up of Texas. 
See the latter's Thirty years' View, I., pp. I.VIC. 

7 



98 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

But prudence then could not avert what prudence 
could not have averted at the time of the formation 
of the Union — to wit, the evils sure to arise in con- 
nection with the existence of an institution at once 
profitable and immoral. The Founders had doubt- 
less deemed rightly that the Union, with slavery 
thrown in, was better than no Union at all ; but 
their decision had only put off the day of reckoning 
with the fatal institution. One by one, most of the 
States north of Maryland had wholly or in part got 
rid of slavery, having been aided thereto by both 
moral and economic considerations. It is doing 
them no injustice to say that, if they had been cot- 
ton-growing States in which, through the invention 
of Whitney's gin, slavery could be made profitable 
to large land-owners, the Puritan conscience would 
have had a harder struggle with the institution than 
it did have. It is, however, a peculiar trait of that 
conscience that from internal conquests, it invari- 
ably turns to external ; and a large part of Anglo- 
Saxon progress is traceable to this fact. Thus it 
was that two irreconcilable forces were preparing 
for battle within the United States even at the time 
of the Era of Good Feeling presided over so im- 
partially by the prudent Monroe. At first the con- 
science of the l^orth was satisfied with the victory 
over the foreign slave trade. Then again, joined 
with the conscience of Southerners of the Revolu- 
tionary Epoch like Jefferson, it satisfied itself with 
palliatives, such as schemes for transporting the 
blacks to Sierra Leone and other congenial places. 
But all the while it waxed in strength and created 
much of the opposition on which it fed. Until 1819, 
however, slavery as a political issue had not occu- 
pied a place of prime importance. Although 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 99 

the Free States, having increased in population faster 
than the Slave States, partlv on account oi their free- 
dom, had outstripped the latter in the popular House 
of Representatives, the Senate with its two mem- 
bers to each State had been evenly balanced. The 
admission of Indiana in 1816 was followed bv that 
of Mississippi in 1817. The accession of Illinois in 
1818 M-as balanced bj that of Alabama in 1819. So 
long as this balancing kept up there was no danger 
that slavery could be constitutionally menaced, but 
it was idle to think that the richest and most popu- 
lous section would long submit to the continuance of 
an institution, which, as philanthropical sentiment 
obtained force in the world, would cast disgrace upon 
the entire Union. It was idle also to hope that rep- 
resentatives of the Free States in Congress would 
acquiesce in the spread of slavery in the vast region 
across the Mississippi that had been purchased in 
part with the money of their constituents, especially 
since the Continental Congress had thirty odd years 
before set apart to freedom the great Xorth-West Ter- 
ritory won by the prowess of General George Rogers 
Clark.* It was equally idle on the other hand to 
exj)ect that the Slave States would sit quietly by and 
allow the Western territory to be carved up inco 
Free States that would disturb the balance of power 
in the Senate and perhaps in time make possible 
constitutional amendments against slavery in the 
older States. f 

Whatever illusions loyal patriots may have had as 
to their ability to keep slavery out of politics wera 

* This exploit (1778-79), one of the most remarkable in 
American history, is well described la Roosevelt's Wiiming 
of the West, Vol! II. 

f See Appendix. A., article 5. 



^■^fc. 



100 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

riidely disturbed ■when, at the end of the year ISIS, 
a memorial from the Territorial Legislatnre of 
^[issouri was laid before the House asking for per- 
mission to form a constitution and to enter as n 
State. From its position and from the character of 
its population, which already included many slaves, 
there was no doubt that the new State, of which St. 
Louis was the most important town, would favour 
slavery if left alone. Accordingly James Tallmadge, 
of Xew York, moved that the enabling act should con- 
tain a restriction to the eii'eet that no slaves should be 
thereafter imported into the State, and that the chil- 
dren of slaves born after the admission of the State 
should be " free at the age of twenty-five years," 
Considerable discussion took place in February, 
1819, after the House had exhausted itself on the 
Jackson escapade, both on Tallmadge's restriction 
and on a similar one proposed in connection with the 
act for forming the southern portion of the IMissouri 
Territory into the new Territory of Arkansas. 
Finally the bill as amended passed the House by a 
small majority, but was defeated in the Senate. 
!N^either bodv being willing to vield, ^lissouri had to 
retain her territorial status for a while longer. The 
controversy had fairly begun, but Congress without 
misgivings began a system of more liberal pensions 
for military service, and altered the national flag so 
as to include in the union of stars as many States 
as might be in existence at any particular time. 
They little foresaw that the pensions to be allotted 
those who had striven to keep the number of such 
stars from diminishing would ever be a source of 
political corrujition to the country. 

Although Monroe's message to the Sixteenth Con 
gress dealt mainly with Spain's harassing and uri- 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 101 

warrantable failure tlius far to ratify the late treaty 
with regard to Florida, the Missouri question, which 
had been much discussed throughout the country 
during the interim between the two Congresses, w^as 
distinctly the important issue of the session. It 
was rendered more complicated by the petition of 
the people of JMaine, who wished to separate from 
Massachusetts in order to form a State. If Missouri 
were made free, the Senatorial balance would bo 
destroyed, probably for all time. The House passed 
the bill admitting !Maine, but as the restriction on 
Missouri's allowing slavery was again proposed, the 
Senate decided on February IG, 1820, to admit 
Maine only on the proviso that ]\Hssouri should he 
received with a constitution authorising slavery. To 
this the House would not consent, but at the close of 
the session a way was found out of the difficulty. 
An amendment proposed by Senator Thomas of 
Illinois, to the effect that slavery should be allowed 
Avithin the limits assigned to Missouri, but be for ever 
prohibited from the rest of the Louisiana Purchase 
north of 36° 30' — the northern boundary of Arkan- 
sas — was finally accepted by both House and Senate, 
and, on receiving ]Monroe's sanction, became the law 
of the land. Thus Missouri was secured as a slave 
State to balance Maine, but the opponents of slavery 
got the larger share of the territory involved in the 
struggle, and the principle that Congress could legis- 
late with regard to slavery in the Territories re- 
ceived a sanction which the South could not over- 
throw for thirty years, during which period the anti- 
slavery movement gathered strength and the x^orth 
gained on the South in population and wealth. 

But the controversy w^as not over yet. Missouri's 
constitution had still to be approved by Congress, 



102 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and the next year, 1821, revealed the fact that the 
State had forbidden free negroes to enter its borders. 
This aroused the Xorthern men once more, but 
finally, owing to the mediation of Clay, Congress 
was induced to accept Missouri with her obnoxious 
constitution, on the understanding that the clause 
about the free blacks should never be construed so 
as to limit the rights of citizens of the United States. 
As free blacks were then regarded as citizens of the 
United States, this proviso seemed to annul the ob- 
jectionable clause and to square the State constitu- 
tion with that of the Union, which perhaps might 
have been accomplished by judicial action alono. 
But Congress merely required the Missouri legislature 
to assent to the new provision, and it was a question 
whether a legislature could bind a State in a matter 
relating to a fundamental document like a constitu- 
tion. Still the Missouri legislature did as it was 
told to do, and Monroe proclaimed the admission of 
the State on August 10, 1821. 

The country was greatly relieved at this settle- 
ment of the trying affair, for it meant immediate 
peace, and to unimaginative people the present out- 
weighs the future. A few anti-slavery men stood 
out to the end, however, maintaining that a com- 
promise on a matter involving vital principles could 
not last and ought not to receive the support of 
honest men, while a small body of Southerners, 
headed by John Randolph, resisted tlie Compromise 
on the ground that to admit the right of Congress 
to legislate against slavery in a State or Territory 
was a sacrifice of principle. The stalwarts in both 
parties were more nearly right than the moderate 
men who compromised, yet it is perhaps true that 
the postponement of a final decision of the mighty 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 103 

question ultimately gave the North and West time 
to develop and thus made for freedom.* 

As for the arguments advanced in the debates on 
the question, it is obviously impossible to do them 
justice in a book like the present. On the whole, 
the power of Congress to restrict slavery in a Terri- 
tory seems to have been agreed to by a Southern 
President and a preponderatingly Southern Cabinet, 
as well as by a majority of Southern Congressmen, 
on grounds which appeal more to reason and justice 
than do the grounds taken by Southern leaders a 
generation later, f True, the precedent set in the case 
of the ISTorth- Western Territory was not entirely in 
point, since the Continental Congress, which passed 
the famous Ordinance of 1787 devoting that region 
to freedom, in many ways resembled a body of pleni- 
potentiaries. But, if a Territory was to be regulated 
at all, such regulation must come from Congress, and 
it was as true to say that the permission to slavery 
to enter a Territory practically closed it for ever 
to freedom as it Avas to assert that declaring all per- 
sons living in a Territory free was to shut it for ever 
to slavery. The Southerner, of course, looking upon 
slavery as analogous to property rights about which 
there could be no discussion, could argue with great 
fervour and sincerity with regard to the injustice of 
depriving Territories and future States of what he 
regarded as rights and privileges. The ISTortherner, 

* Whether the Compromise of 1820 was a Northern or a 
Southern measure has been a moot question. It satisfied 
more Southern representatives than Northern if we may 
Judge by the final vote. 

t It is worth remembering tliat in 1838 the boundaries of 
Missouri were extended to take a large strip of territory. 
This extension of slave soil was then regarded as lying witliin 
the competence of Congress, and Northern men agreed to it. 
See Beaton, I. 626. 



104 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

on the other hand, laboured under the disadvantage 
of having to defend an abstract cause in a technical- 
ly legal Avay. Dealing with a clear, unprejudiced 
mind he was almost certain to succeed in his appeal, 
but dealing with one fettered by conventionalities 
and incapable of looking beneath the surface of 
arguments based upon plausible analogies he was 
almost certain to fail. So far, however, as the gen- 
eral acuteness and the personal candour of the two 
contending factions are concerned, there is no need 
at this late day to make invidious comparisons. Both 
sides were thoroughly in earnest, both believed that 
they M'ere labouring for the good of tlie Union and 
the cause of abstract right. Each side occupied 
ground determined not by individual choice so much 
as by history and environment. If Tallmadge had 
been from Virginia he would, in all probability, 
never have nuule the amendment that has rendered 
him famous; if his oi>poncnt, V. P. Barbour, had 
been from Xew York, he might with thorough con- 
scientiousness have proposed the amendment him- 
self. 

One argununit that played an important part must, 
however, be singled out for connnent. !Many South- 
erners, including Jefferson, believed that to spread 
slavery over new territory would improve the condi- 
tion of the blacks, especially in the crowded older 
States. Their argument seems to have been falla- 
cious, for slaves would have multiplied in parts of the 
West, and the breeding of slaves would assuredly 
have received a great impetus in the Border Slave 
States; thus the institution in an aggravated form 
would have been fastened more securely upon the 
country. Yet the belief of these Southerners was 
thoroughly honest and was but little more Utopian 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 105 

than the soliciiies of deportatiou indulged in bj tho 
American Colonisation Society, organised in 1816 
and patronised by sncli men as Clay and John Ran- 
doljih. Liberia, indirectly founded by the govern- 
ment and by this Society during Monroe's regime, 
■was as little effective in solving the slavery problem 
as the opening of the entire West to the institution 
would have been. 

But the Missouri Compromises of 1820 and 182 J., 
although the most important domestic features of 
^[onroe's first Administration, are not the only ones 
deserving attention. The panic of 181S--19 and the 
affairs of the National Bank demand a word. The 
resumption of specie payments and the good show- 
ing made by the Treasury immediately after the war 
were dece])tive signs of national prosperity. Bus- 
iness had been unduly stimulated, and the currency 
had been much disturbed by the recklessness of banks 
in issuing paper currency. Creditors now began to 
press debtors and great suffering ensued, especially 
in the South and West, which had not the stable 
financial institutions and methods of iSTew England.* 
The Middle States also suffered, and it soon ap- 
peared that the Bank of the United States was in- 
creasing the evils it was intended to cure, by making 
heavy calls upon the local banks whose paper it held. 
Suspicion arose that the Bank was in straits, and a 
thorough investigation, chiefly at the hands of John 
C. Spencer of Xcw York, aided by John Tyler of 
Virginia, was begun by the House of Re})resenta- 
tives in the autumn of 1S18. It was soon shown 
that a ring of speculators at Baltimore had used the 
institution for their own profit and nearly swamped 

* See Benton's account of the distress of tlie period in his 
Tliirty Years' View, Vol. I., p. 5 (New York, 1864). 



106 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

its honest branches iu Xew York and Boston. Re- 
form "was imperatively necessary, and ^vas intrusted 
in the main to a new president of the institution, 
Langdon Cheves of South Carolina, who with his 
assistants finally brought order out of almost hopo 
less confusion. At the same time the States grew 
moi-e cai-eful about chartering banks and caused 
many poorly managed ones to settle their affairs and 
go out of business, while the people at large bore up 
with considerable fortitude imder the hard times, 
which were felt in Europe also. Attempts were in- 
deed made in some of the States to tax the Xational 
Bank so heavily as to force it out of business in par- 
ticular localities, much as Trusts are now assailed ; 
but the Federal courts safeguarded the Bank by 
their decisions, and by the end of 18-20, in spite of 
the fact that the government had had to ask for a 
loan of $5,000,000, Monroe was able to say in his 
annual message that, on the whole, he could not 
" regard the pressures to which he had adverted 
otherwise than in the light of mild and instructive 
admonitions; warning us of dangers to be shimned 
iu future ; teaching us lessons of economy, corre- 
sponding with the simplicity and purity of our in- 
stitutions, and best adapted to their support." The 
United States have seen much greater periods of de- 
pression than the years 1818-1820, but the spec- 
tacle of a man's resigning political station, as 
Cheves did, in order to come to the rescue of his 
country has hardly been paralleled. Such lessons 
of high conduct are not easily learned, but it would 
at least seem that the tenth decade of the century 
should not be attempting to apply financial panaceas 
discredited in the second. 

As the time drew near for new nominations for the 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 107 

})rotiideiicv, it became quite clear that Monroe had 
governed so wisely and was so popular throughout 
the country that there was no use in opposing him. 
Rivals like Crawford and (^lay had, therefore, to 
bide their time, and when, in the spring of 1820, 
the regular Congressional caucus of the Re])ublicans 
was held, not enough members attended to make it 
worth while to go through the form of making nomi- 
nations. When the electoral votes were counted, it 
was found that ]\Ionroe had fallen only one short 
of a unanimous vote — a New Hampshire elector 
being determiiied that Washington alone should bo 
honoured in such a way — and that Vice-President 
Tompkins had run very little behind him. 

Monroe's second Administration furnished to the 
world the celebrated '' doctrine " called by his name, 
and is, therefore, perhaps more important than his 
iirst; but it certainly does not deserve to be con- 
sidered as forming any part of the " era of good 
feeling." It is true that party spirit seemed to have 
died out, and that the President cherished the hope 
that the old struggles in which his prime had been 
passed were over for ever; but the day was not far 
distant when two distinct parties would be contend- 
ing strenuously on much the same lines as of old, so 
far as general principles were concerned ; and in the 
meanwhile the political world was divided into fac- 
tions which pursued a petty warfare more demoral- 
ising than any strife of ])arties could have been. 

Into the details of this warfare we fortunately 
need not enter, a few general facts about it being 
sufficient for our purposes. !N'o third term was pos- 
sible for Monroe even had he wished it, for the pre- 
cedent set by Washington and confirmed by Jeffer- 
son was too strong; the succession to the presidency 



108 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

became therefore, in the absence of any vital politi- 
cal programme, the only thing to be striven for. A 
mere contest for office of course represents the lowest 
level to which public life can sink, but it may be at 
least said for the polities of this period that the 
struggles of its leaders did not involve so muc'n 
pecuniary spoils and consequent loss to the people 
as such struggles involve at present. Perhaps, how- 
ever, they did involve as much, if not more, personal 
spite. Three of Monroe's Secretaries aspired to fill 
his place — Crawford, Adams, and Calhoun; while 
outside the Cabinet Henry Clay and Andrew Jack- 
son were quite willing that their friends should 
work for them night and day. Of these can- 
didacies three at least seem to have been clean — 
those of Adams, Jackson, and Calhoun. The last 
statesman had but little chance, and before the end 
came was glad to accept the easily secured place of 
Vice-President. Jackson was put forward by his 
own State and was the natural choice of the de- 
mocracy, of the plain people who dominated the West 
and formed an influential part of the population 
of the older sections. Adams was the logical can- 
didate of 'New England, and, in the absence of com- 
petitors, of the ISTorth generally; and, asheAvas Secre- 
tary of State, he had precedent in his favour. Besides 
four out of five Presidents had been Southern men, 
and it was time for the Xorth to put in its claims. 
But in spite of all his culture, his sound sense, and 
his dij^lomatic, senatorial, and executive training, 
which made him obviously the fittest candidate, he 
was cold in manners to the point of being repellent, 
and even his N^orthern admirers felt that support 
of his candidacy v/as uphill work. Already by 
1822 the tendency of democratic masses to suspect 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 109 

trained talents and to bestow public office much as 
one bestows one's likings and friendships was a 
factor in politics, and the lapse of three-quarters of a 
century has brought little or no improvement. 

With regard to the candidacy of Clay, if it can- 
not be considered entirely clean on account of his 
early disposition to embarrass Monroe and to make 
capital out of Spanish-American affairs, it does not 
at least offend greatly a scrupulous taste. Clay, like 
Jackson, represented the West and was supported by 
a host of friends who admired him as perhaps no 
other American has been admired. His very vices, 
such as gambling, won him admirers much as Jack- 
son's faults did for him. Yet, unlike Jackson, he 
was a trained, if a somewhat theatrical statesman, 
and was thus a dangerous rival of Adams, whom he, 
of course, far surpassed in eloquence and magnetism. 
But the most dangerous candidacy in many ways 
was that of Crawford. As we have seen, he was 
more of a political manipulator or " boss " than 
any of his rivals. He had early begun to lay his 
plans for the succession, and finding that Monroe 
was sure of re-election, had continued them. Mon- 
roe endeavoured to preserve an entire impartiality — 
especially with regard to the three members of his 
Cabinet, but even he seems to have found it difficult 
to get on with Crawford. Adams and Calhoun 
loathed him, and without adopting their prejudices 
or doing injustice to his character, it is easy to see 
that he employed methods not altogether commend- 
able. As early as 1820, he secured the passage of 
an act by which most officers connected with the 
public funds were appointed for terms of four years 
— a measure which helped the subsequent transition 
to the spoils system and gave the ingenious Secretary 



110 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

patronage with whicli to support his presidential as- 
pirations. He also seems to have gained a most re- 
markable influence over the average Congressman 
and to have used it to harass at least one rival, Cal- 
houn, whose excellent management of the War De- 
partment was subjected through unwise retrench- 
ments to quite needless embarrassment. Altogether 
the factional struggles of the period give it a sinister 
aspect for which Crawford and his friends seem to 
have been responsible to a disproportionate extent. 

Little of real importance happened during the 
period of the Seventeenth Congress, 1821-1823. 
Business, public and private, was now on a better 
footing, and schemes of public improvement begati 
to be agitated, especially in connection M'ith the fine 
national road between Cumberland, Maryland, and 
Wlieeling, now in West Virginia. This road was 
designed to reach St. Louis and to be very service- 
able in opening up the Western country. But !Mon- 
roe, while willing that Congress should help such 
enterprises, adhered to his original opinion that 
without a constitutional amendment the general gov- 
ernment ought not to own and control them, except 
in such cases as came under fair constitutional in- 
terpretation, such as improvements of rivers and 
harbours. His carefully prepared veto prevailed, and 
although a considerable amount of money went to 
public improvements under his successor, the coun- 
try finally accepted the views of the three prudent 
Virginia Presidents.* 

A matter of less perplexity, both to Congress and 
to the Executive, was the recognition accorded the 

* Monroe relented as to tlie Cumberland Road, which was 
pushed forwai'd from time to time, but of course lost its im- 
portance when railroad development began. 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. m 

revolted Spanish-American States, which was easily 
effected by appropriating money in March, 1822, 
for the payment of accredited missions. A terri- 
torial government was also given to Florida, which 
appeared to most people then hnt a barren posses- 
sion, bnt in which Andrew Jackson as governor had 
jnst given a fine specimen of what a high-handed 
American could do in the way of dealing withofficials 
that did not act to suit him. It is needless to describe 
his sending the ex-governor Callava to jail for a day 
because he demurred to Jackson's demand for the 
turning over of certain papers; but it may be as well 
to note that, if Jackson's character be still fascinat- 
ing to a large majority of his countrymen, foreign 
relations with sensitive peoples will not be conducted 
with all the smoothness desirable. 

Foreign relations were in Monroe's time very 
different from those that confront the country now 
and are likely to continue to confront it ; they were 
also different from those that had confronted Jeffer- 
son and ]\radison. It was no longer a question of 
preserving neutral rights upon the sea, but of safe- 
guarding from foreign aggression the immense and 
tempting area for colonisation spread out in both 
Xorth and South America. If Europe were to step 
in just as Spain seemed to be on the point of step- 
ping out, all the Continental quarrels would be dupli- 
cated on this side of the ocean, and the internal dis- 
sensions and the entangling alliances against which 
"Washington and Jefferson had lifted warning voices 
would be inevitable features of American politics. 
And Europe seemed about to step in. The IToly 
Alliance appeared resolved first to undo the work of 
the revolution in Spain itself and then to settle the 
affairs of Spanish America, not by restoring her col- 



112 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

onies to Spain or by recognising their independ- 
ence as the United States did as soon as was prac- 
ticable, bnt by a redistribution of the territory among 
the chief powers. Thus a Bourbon might reign at 
Buenos Ayres, and Russia, which was already 
making colonial experiments on the Xorth Pacific, 
might find in San Franscisco and the Golden Gate 
temporary compensation for her exclusion from Con- 
stantinople and the Golden Horn. 

But Great Britain, also, had an interest in these 
schemes, and fortunately one in harmony, not in con- 
flict with that of the United States. Canning, now 
in the Foreign Office since Castlereagh's suicide, 
woiild not respond favourably to Richard Rush, the 
American minister, when the latter urged that Great 
Britain recognise the independence of the revolted 
Spanish colonies, but, as the designs of the Alliance 
became plainer, he proposed joint action between 
Great Britain and America either by a convention 
or agreement of some sort, or by Great Britain's 
securing the United States a voice in the suggested 
European Congress. Rush discreetly refused to 
commit his country, but the information he trans- 
mitted to Monroe gave the latter an opportunity to 
promulgate a policy strictly American and yet sure 
to be agreeable to Great Britain ; one that would pro- 
tect the new republics to the south as well as the out- 
lying areas so tempting to powers bent on colonisa- 
tion. His message to the Eighteenth Congress in 
December, 1823, contained, in the last paragraph 
but one, four sentences in which is to be found the 
germ of the " doctrine " called by his name — a 
doctrine which has been so much developed that it 
will be well to quote the original utterance in 
extet^so : — 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. 113 

" We owe it, therefore, to candour and to the 
amicable rehitions existing between the United 
States and those powers [i.e. the Holy Alliance] to 
declare, that we should consider any attempt on their 
part to extend their system to any portion of this 
hemisphere, as dangerous to onr peace and safety. 
With the existing colonies or dependencies of any 
European power, we have not interfered and shall 
not interfere. Bnt, with the governments who have 
declared their independence, and maintained it, and 
whose independence we have, on great consideration, 
and on jnst principles acknowledged, we could not 
view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing 
them, or controlling in any other manner, their des- 
tiny, by any European power, in any other light than 
as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition to- 
wards the United States. In the war between these 
new governments and Spain, we declared our neu- 
trality at the time of their recognition, and to this 
we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, pro- 
vided no change shall occur, which, in the judg- 
ment of the competent authorities of this govern- 
ment, shall make a corresponding change, on the 
part of the United States, indispensable to their 
security." 

It is quite obvious from these sentences that Mon- 
roe intended to set a calm menace over against a 
rash one, and that he did it for the sake of averting 
future complications. It was really a stroke of con- 
summate statesmanship for which history has no 
words but praise." As we shall see later, Monroe's 
simple policy has been expanded into a much more 

* In this connection Jefl'erson's important letters to Monroe 
written during the summer and fall of 1833 must not be over- 
looked. 

8 



114 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

formidable one than he intended. It is quite plain 
that he did not mean that the United States should 
assume the hegemony of all the other American re- 
publics and light their battles for them. John 
Quincy Adams three years later gave the true 
rendering of the " doctrine " when in connection 
with the Panama Congress (see post I. vii., p.l21), 
he desired that each republic should agree to '" guard, 
by its own means, against the establishment of any 
future European colony within its borders." In 
just so far as an understanding among nations upon 
a certain vital point differs from a hegemony, so far 
does the original ]\[onroe Doctrine differ from what 
most Americans at the close of the century under- 
stand it to mean. "Whether the development it has 
undergone can be justified will be discussed in an- 
other place, but it may be as well to state here that 
there is little doubt that Monroe but voiced the gen- 
eral views of his time, and that there is no sufficient 
reason for attributing the origin of the policy to 
Canning, although the attitude of Great Britain was 
not without its influence upon the time and manner 
in which the " doctrine " was promulgated. 

That neither the President nor Congress, at this 
juncture an able body, was in a hectoring mood ap- 
pears clearly from the fate of Webster's effort to 
have the President instructed to send a commissioner 
to revolted Greece whenever he should deem it ex- 
pedient. Webster was eloquent and Clay came to 
his aid; the cause was inspiring if ever cause was; 
one State legislature, that of South Carolina, had 
declared that it " would hail with pleasure the rec- 
ognition, by the American government, of the in- 
dependence of Greece '' ; but it was left for John 
Randolph to voice sarcastically the sober sense of 



THE ERA OF CxOOD FEELIJfG. 115 

tlie country, and sympathy was all that could hr 
niforded by the land of Washington to that of 
Leonidas. The new light of Massacluisctts was for 
once dimmed by the old light from Virginia, which 
in more than one ])articnlar bhizod like a torch of 
prophecy. '* Xot satisfied," exclaimed Randolph, 
" with attempting to support the Greeks, one world, 
like that of Pyrrhns or Alexander, is not enougli 
for us. We have yet another world for exploits: 
we are to operate in a country distant from us eighty 
degrees of latitude, and only accessible by a cir- 
cumnavigation of the globe, and to subdue which 
we must cover the Pacific with our ships, and the 
tops of the Andes with our soldiers. Do gentlemen 
seriously reflect on the work they have cut out for 
us ? Why, sir, these projects of ambition surpass 
those of Bonaparte himself." 

Webster had previously struck the typical Ameri- 
can note, not merely of the period but of the century, 
when he had exclaimed : '' The attitude of the United 
States, meanwhile, is solemn and impressive. Ours 
is now the great Republic of the earth." It was 
well for a growing country to have such a strong 
and buoyant representative as Webster; it was also 
well for it to liave such an insistent, even if eccentric 
critic as Randolph, who unfortunately could not pre- 
vent the increasing demand for protective duties 
which led to the Tariff of 1824. 

The movement for higher duties was not alto- 
gether unnatural, as Professor Taussig has shown. 
After the hard year of 1819 farmers demanded a 
home market, and the new industries preferred gov- 
ernmental bounty to struggling for themselves. 
Monroe favoured increased protection in many of 
his messages, and in the session of 1810-20 Congress 



IIG PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

came verv near complvinc with the demands of the 
manufacturers. The Middle and Western States 
which chimoured for a home market had been dis- 
astrously alfected by bad banking and paper money, 
M'hile Xew England, less injured in these particu- 
lars, was still interested in importing goods with 
her ships and was thus not a unit for protection. 
The South, on the whole, opposed the movement 
of 1820, having had time to see how hard the Tariff 
of 1816 pressed upon her. The next two or three 
years saw a slight lull in the controversy, but by 
1824, the popular leaders having committed them- 
selves to the policy, a bill fixing higher duties was 
passed over the opposition of the South and of part of 
Xew England. The duties on cotton and woollen 
goods went up from 2.") to 83 J per cent. There were 
also increased duties on iron, lead, hemp and wool, 
the last rendering the advance on woollens some- 
what nugatory. In the main, then, the new tariff 
was by no means an extreme one, but it was quite 
certain that the more the manufacturers got, the 
more they would want. Infant industries fed on 
government bounty are rarely or never known to 
reach maturity. Why should they I 

But the contest for the Presidency and the visit 
of Lafayette * to the country he had served nearly 
half a century before, were more exciting matters 
than a tariff bill. Lafayette, who journeyed every- 
where and was received with indescribable enthu- 
siasm, stood for amity; the presidential candidates 
stood for just the reverse. Crawford had been 
paralysed and for some time had done his Treasury 
work through a deputy, but his friends kept up 
his fight and cleared him from an investigation of 
* He had been invited by Congress. 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. II7 

his (Icpartnieut which was prompted hy malice hut 
was after all a piece of poetical justice in view of 
what had previously happened to Calhoun. Still 
in spite of Crawford's treatment of his colleagues 
and of his chief, in sundry matters that need not 
be detailed, his hard fate moves pity, esj)ecially 
when we tind that he gained the caucus nomination 
early in 1824, only to have the old system break 
in his hands. Xone but his frieiuls had attended 
the meeting, since State legislatures had supported 
the other candidates and denounced the old caucus 
as the instrument of a dictating ring.* Nothing 
Avould be gained by an attempt to describe the 
various local intrigues which preceded the election 
of November, 1824. As might have been expected, 
Avith four candidates running in tlie only party 
existing, there was no one ca})al>le of receiving a 
nuijority, and, as twenty-four years before, tho 
choice of President fell to the House of Eepresenta- 
tives, Calhoun having shrewdly secured the Vice- 
Presidency by an overwhelming majority. Jackson 
ran ahead both in electoral votes and in the popular 
vote. In the Electoral College his vote was 99; 
Adams came next with 84; Crawford followed 
with 41 ; and Clay closed the list with 37. Tho 
next few months repeated the scenes of the Jefferson- 
Burr contest, but on a lower scale. Finally Clay, 
who not being one of the three highest candidates 
could not be balloted for,f threw the votes of hi,s 
friends to Adams, who Avas elected at the first ballot 
on February 9, 1825. The charge had been previ- 
ously urged that a corrupt bargain had been struck 

* In Pennsylvania a ])opular convention nominated Jack- 
son shortly aifter the caucus at Washington. 
t See Appendix A., Amendments, article 12. 



lis PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

between the two, Clay's reward having been noth- 
ing less than the succession to the Secretaryship of 
State. It is true that Adams announced im- 
mediately after his election that he should choose 
Clay for this position, but that any formal bargain 
Mas made between them is not probable. Jackson 
and his friends were much chagrined by the result. 
and advanced the theory that the General, having 
been voted for by more individual voters than any 
of the other candidates, should have been chosen 
by the House ; but this was, of course, tantamount 
to saying that the constitutional provision requir- 
ing a majority of the electoral votes for an election 
should be made a dead letter. Still it was only 
natural that four years of petty intrigues should 
produce rancour, and that the unniagnetic Adams 
should during the next four years be made to pay 
the penalty for his narrowly gained success. ^lean- 
while !^Ionroe closed quietly two momentous Ad- 
ministrations, leaving the Union seemingly at peaco", 
witli a full treasury, a people rapidly growing in 
numbers and wealth, and an absence of party-spirit 
that seemed to promise a continuance of what fond 
patriots might deem a veritable golden age of the 
Kopublic. It was a delusive prospect that stretched 
before the good man's eyes ; but he had at least done 
his duty faithfully and with a dignity worthy of 
the illustrious men who gave him his training in 
statesmanship. 



THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 119 



CHAPTER YTT. 

THE PAKTIXCt of THE WATS. 

Besides the choice of Clay the new President 
made only two other changes in the Cabinet 
Eichard Rush was recalled from England and put 
in charge of the Treasury, while Senator James 
Barbour of Virginia was made Secretary of "War. 
Samuel Southard of Xew Jersey, Wirt, and John 
McLean of Ohio, held over from Monroe's regime 
as Secretary of the Xavy, Attorney-General, and 
Postmaster-General respectively. In point of work 
it was an efficient Cabinet, but McLean, who 
strictly speaking did not belong to that body, seems 
to have played toward Adams somewhat the part 
that Crawford played toward ^Monroe. It was not, 
however, internal treachery that Adams had to fear 
so much as the open opposition of Jackson's ad- 
herents in Congress and his own inability to win 
friends and to stimulate their zeal. lie was that 
most unfortunate of men. whether in public or in 
private life, the man " compact of " irritating 
virtues. 

But even if he had possessed an engaging per- 
sonality, the record of his frustrated Administration 
would not, in all probability, have been greatly 
varieil. He began with a false step — the nomina- 
tion of Clay ; and as a successful minority candi- 
date he was the natural target for the shafts of de- 
feated rivals whose adherents would inevitably 



120 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

coalesce to form a factious majority. The latter 
misfortune he could not help ; the former mistake 
his conscious rectitude could only extenuate. He 
deliberately gave his enemies an excuse to fill the 
air with cries of fraud which even the patriotic 
shouts at the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary 
of the battle of Bunker Hill and at the completion 
of the Erie Canal could not drown. 

Adams's message to the Nineteenth Congress In 
December, 1825, was a long but v\'ell-written docu- 
ment which bespoke both the scholar and the patriot. 
He abandoned Monroe's position on the subject of 
internal improvements, and thus gave another handle 
to his Southern opponents who were rapidly de- 
veloping a consistent body of States-rights doctrine, 
which discountenanced not only everything that 
menaced or favoured a particular section, but also 
everything that tended to give greater strength and 
influence to the central government. Under the 
circumstances it would have been prudent had he 
been less bold in encouraging Congress to spend 
money. Certainly uiiiversitics and observatories 
were not demanded by the provincial Americans of 
those days. But Adams belonged to the old race 
of statesmen who believed in guiding not following 
the jjeople, and it was his misfortune to stand at 
the parting of the ways pointing out one road of 
national prosperity to a self-confident multitude bent 
on taking another. 

It was not the advocacy of internal improvements,'^' 
however, that caused the chief debate of the session, 
for Congress was now developing the unfortunate 

* About $14,000,000 were spent on such improvements dur- 
ing Adams's Administration — a very large amount for those 
days. 



THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 121 

practice, which still continues, of paying little at- 
tention to presidential recommendations; but rather 
Adams's action in accepting an invitation that the 
United States should send representatives to a Con- 
gress of all the American Republics which was to 
meet, at Bolivar's suggestion, at Panama. When 
the question of confirming the President's nomina- 
tions of persons to represent the United States came 
before the Senate, his course in committing the 
country on his own initiati^'e was much criticised 
and the ])roprietj of taking part in the Congress 
was denied by Senators, like Robert Y. Ilayne of 
South Carolina, in speeches of considerable force. 
In fact the Senate committee chai-ged with the mat- 
ter reported against sending ministers, but the pub- 
lic was decidedly in favour of the grandiose features 
of the sclicme, and the House shared the public's 
whims; the Senate therefore voted down the report 
and the Administration apparently won a victory. 
But Congressional delay and other causes led to the 
failure of Adams's plans, which had at least been 
liberal and beneficent in character. The Panama 
Congress had adjourned without waiting for the ar- 
rival of any representative of the United States, 
and although another meeting was determined on, 
it never took place. The latter-day student is in- 
clined to think that relations could hardly have 
subsisted long with such unstable governments as the 
South American Republics were destined to be, and 
that, whatever the motives of Adams's opponenrs 
were, they made out a pretty strong case for the 
laissez faire policy. Thus the Administration's 
victory was one of those barren ones that are often 
worse than downright defeats. 

One point must, however, be noticed before the 



122 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

matter is dismissed. The negro republic of Hayti 
had been invited to take part in the Congress, and 
this fact naturally created Southern opposition to 
Adams's plans. From now on slavery can be found 
lurking behind most discussions of public policy, 
no matter how innocent they may appear to be. 
Social equality with negro ministers to such a Con- 
gress was not to be thought of, and perhaps the Con- 
gress might discuss the subject of slavery. Strong 
additional reasons these for a let-alone policy, al- 
though by no means strong enough, even when com- 
bined with personal ones, to warrant John Ran- 
dolph, who Avas now serving for a brief space in the 
Senate, in indulging in the most celebrated of all 
his long-winded harangues — the indecent but highly 
amusing speech in which he attacked both Adams 
and Clay and goaded the latter into a fortunately 
bloodless duel by his refercjice to the " coalition 
of Blifil and Black George . . . the combination, 
unheard of till then, of the Puritan with the black- 
leg." 

From Southerners recalcitrant on account of 
slavery the conscientious Adams was bandied like a 
ball to Southerners overbearing in their State pride 
and resolute to rid themselves of the Indians still 
lingering in a region they had once possessed. The 
United States Government was under contract with 
Georgia to remove the Creeks and Cherokees from 
the State's borders as soon as possible. The method 
pursued there and elscAvhere was to secure a land 
cession whenever the chiefs could be induced to con- 
clude a treaty. ISTaturally the red man got the worst 
of the bargain as a rule — in.deed nearly all his rela- 
tions with the whites redounded to his disadvantage, 
in spite of the beneficent intentions of a Jefferson 



THE PARTING OF THE AVAYS. 123 

or a Calhouu. In 1825, a particularly unfair treaty 
was negotiated with the Creeks at Indian Springs, 
by which all the lands of the tribe in Georgia and 
large tracts in Alabama were ceded. The Senate 
in its ignorance ratified the treaty, but the Indians 
put to death the chief who had concluded it and 
despatched a protesting delegation to Washington. 
Adams, feeling that they had been treated unjustly, 
sent troops to Georgia to see that they were not 
driven from their lands, although General Gaines, 
vrho was in command, was instructed to secure a 
proper cession if he could. But the Georgia authori- 
ties had already taken possession and were in haste 
to survey the Creek lands; and Gaines and Gover- 
nor Troup were soon engaged in a hot dispute. The 
Governor's language was very irritating, and at his 
prompting the Georgia legislature undertook to dis- 
pose of the lands, unmindful of the treaty rights 
of the Indians, which lay, of course, beyond the 
State's jurisdiction.* Adams firmly told Governor 
Troup that the State surveys must not continue, 
but he contrived to bring about a lull in the storm by 
getting a more moderate treaty signed early in 1826. 
This was later extended to include all the Creek 
lands in Georgia after the Senate, aiding the State 
against the Administration, had refused to agree to 
the curtailed cession. But the truce did not last 
long, for in marking off the Alabama boundai-y 
line a contest arose, and the Georgia surveyor over- 
rode Indian remonstrance. Adams interfered, 
ordering the arrest of any person persisting in the 
survey; but Troup in defiance commanded the re- 
lease of any surveyors arrested and the arrest of 

* See Appendix A., art. 1, sect. 10 ; ai't. 2, sect. 2. 



124 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

any United States officers interfering- with the sur- 
vey. He rounded off his high-handed measures by 
ordering the militia to be prepared to repel invaders, 
by which term he referred to soldiers whom the 
l*resident might send to maintain the Indians in 
possession. Adams now sent a special message to 
Congress recounting in dignified language what had 
occurred and requesting legislation on the matter 
if it Avere deemed wise; but avowing his intention 
to see that the laws of the Union were executed, 
even if a contest with Georgia had to be resorted 
to. Congress, hoAvever, was no friend of Adams 
and was naturally averse to civil strife; the resolu- 
tions passed on the subject were consequently very 
feeble. The President was besought to endeavour 
to get the Indians to yield the land, and, as such 
negotiations were already on foot, Troup was con- 
tent to express himself more urbanely. He could 
well afford to do so, for he had succeeded in bully- 
ing the President and the Union. Still it is only 
just to him and to Georgia to say that the presence 
of Indians Avithin the borders of the Stale was in 
every way a nuisance that called for abatement, 
and that the relations between the Union and the 
individual States were at that time by no means 
settled. Indeed, more than once, State executives 
within the past decade have shown a high-handed- 
ness comparable with Troup's. Besides Georgia 
Avas, in parts of it at least, little more than a rough 
frontier State, and frontiersmen had little sym- 
pathy Avith Indians, especially Avith drunken speci- 
mens of the race like those Avhom the novelist Simms 
saw about this time lying naked in the streets of 
Mobile. In vieAv of all these facts, it is easier to ex- 
cuse Governor Troup than to excuse Adams's foes 



THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 125 

in Congress who humiliated the Union in order to 
humiliate him. One man, however, stood by him 
splendidly — Daniel Webster, whose reply to Rep- 
resentative Forsyth of Georgia may not be one; of the 
great triumphs of the orator, but is certainly one of 
the finest performances of the man. We may now 
leave this unpleasant episode with the remark that, 
as the Cherokees had been too wary to enter into 
treaties about their lands, Georgia still had trouble 
ahead of h-er, not, as will be seen, with the Federal 
Executive but with that sturdy supporter of the 
rights of the Union, Chief Justice Marshall, whose 
weighty decisions throughout the period we are now 
treating will be briefly noticed hereafter. 

It seems to be an instance of the irony of fate 
that in the course of such a transition Administra- 
tion as that of John Quincy Adams, the two great 
survivors of the Revolution, the two men who in 
their persons summed up nearly all the character- 
istics of the age now left behind, should have died 
on the fiftieth anniversary of the great Declaration 
of Independence which one had drafted and the 
other had supported with his eloquence. Jefferson 
and John Adams died within a few hours of one 
another on July 4, 1S2(). It was, of course, a happy 
turn of fate that took them from the world on In- 
dependence Day of all others in the year; nor was 
fate unkind to them in removing them from a scene 
of strife, of which they had had prophetic glimpses, 
but fortunately no full realisation. They left sur- 
vivors in Madison and Monroe, bnt no other peers; 
uor could the nation that mourned them foresee 
to what an extent the standard of statesmanship 
they had set would remain unapproacbed, if not un- 
approachable. 



126 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

It is sometimes ])Ossible, as will be seen in the 
case of Andrew Jackson, for a President to make 
up in part, by success in foreign diplomacy, for 
what he has lost at home on account of unlucky or 
bad administration ; but it was Adams's misfortune, 
trained diplomatist though he was, to fail signally 
in both fields. Trade with the British West Indies 
had been denied to Americans for many years down 
to the close of Monroe's first Administration. It was 
a very important trade, and many futile efforts had 
been made in order to secure by treaty a right to 
share it, or rather to monopolise it. During Mon- 
I'oe's second Administration Parliament relaxed its 
laws and American shipping at once profited greatly, 
Congress at the same time opening American ports 
to British vessels. But in 1825, Parliament changed 
its policy, and it became necessary for America to 
make new concessions within a year. What between 
misunderstanding of the new rules and the failure 
of Congress to act promptly enough, the year of 
grace expired without America's having conformed 
with Great Britaiii's requirements, and Gallatin, the 
new minister in London, found it impossible to in- 
duce Canning to negotiate in the matter. Thus 
Adams's Administration, through little or no fault 
of its own, suffered a loss for which the large num- 
ber of other commercial treaties concluded could not 
compensate. Gallatin did manage to settle certain 
other points in dispute, but on the whole, remember- 
ing the Panama fiasco, one is bound to conclude 
that most if not all of Adams's diplomatic triumphs 
came to him before he attained the Presidency. 

The Twentieth Congress showed by its temper 
that Adams would not stand much chance for r<^- 
election. Jackson's friends had kept that warrior 



THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 127 

steadily before the public, and the Crawford ar.d 
Calhoun factions had been won over to him. The 
compromised Clay on the other hand had failed to 
do mneli either for Adams or for himself. The 
South was solid for Jackson ; New England stolidly 
sustained the equally stolid Adams; the Middle 
States were, therefore, the real battleground ; but 
with astute leaders like Senator Martin Van Buren 
arrayed against them, the Administration men could 
make only a losing fight in the elections of 1S2G 
and 1827. Hence it was no surprise to Adams when 
the new Congress proceeded to pry into the accounts 
of executive departments in order to discover ir- 
regularities and to check wastefulness of expendi- 
ture. It was altogether a petty and mean business 
that need not be described, since the character of the 
men engaged in it is sufficiently brought out in the 
short account that must now be given of the pass- 
age of the Tariff of 1828, properly denominated 
the " Tariff of Abominations." 

In the last Congress a bill had been introduced 
giving increased protection on coarse woollens, 
which were now being threatened by English cloths. 
It had failed in the Senate because Calhoun, who 
was now less of a nationalist in politics, had, as 
Vice-President, given his casting vote against it. 
Encouraged by their narrowly missed victory, the 
protectionists rallied in convention at Ilarrisburg, 
Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1827, and urged 
Congress and the people to take up the cause of 
domestic manufactures. This convention had no 
objects that smacked of disunion, but in reality it 
was sectional in composition and was instrumental 
in sowing seed that afterwards ripened to a harvest 
not agreeable to the Middle and !N'ew England 



12S PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

States,* which practieallj sent all the delegates 
that attended the meeting. The Southern Com- 
mercial Conventions, that Avere forerunners of the 
Secession Conventions, were able to claim with con- 
siderable truth that they were by no means the first 
gatherings held in the United States for sectional 
purposes. 

This protection movement was not unwelcome lo 
the Adams men, as the President's supporters were 
called, but was a source of great perplexity to the 
Jackson men, in spite of the fact that their heio 
was moderately in favour of protectionist theories, 
about which, it is fair to infer, he knew very little. 
The South, on which Jackson relied, was practi- 
cally a unit against high tariffs, and South Carolina, 
in particular, had denounced them fiercely. But 
New England woollen manufacturers and Western 
wool growers, besides protectionists from Jackson's 
stronghold, Pennsylvania, and other Middle States, 
had to be considered as well as the South, by poli- 
ticians whose chief object was not to serve theii- 
country but to elect a President. In their dilemma 
they hit upon a scheme which seems so thoroughly 
unprincipled that it will be best not to saddle any 
one man's name with it. They determined to 
frame a tariff which should lay snch high duties on 
raw materials that J^ew England Representatives 
and Senators, wlio were Adams men, would refuse 
to vote for it. The Southern Jackson men would, 
of course, unite with them in opposing it. The 
measure would tlius be lost ; but the defection of the 
Adams men would rankle with the protectionists 
far more than the opposition of Jackson's Southern 

* This section liacl now abandoned shipping interests for 
those of manufacturing. 



THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 129 

supporters, and consequently Jackson would gain 
votes everywhere. It was a cleverly contemptible 
scheme, but it did not work. In spite of the facts 
that the woollen trade received a blow through cer- 
tain technical variations from the ITarrisburg pro- 
gramme, that a heavy mixed specific and ad valorem 
duty was put on wool, that the duty on hemp, no 
fine quality of which was grown in the country at 
all, was raised from $35 to $4.5 per ton, with an- 
nual increments of $5 until $60 per ton was reached, 
that the duty on molasses was doubled — in short, 
notwithstanding the fact that everything was done 
to make the bill distasteful to them, enough ^NTew 
England men decided that the measure was on the 
whole better than nothing, to pass it through both 
Houses and send it to the President, who promptly 
signed it. 

Several States at once protested against the con- 
stitutionality and the justice of the act. The most 
celebrated of these protests was contained in the 
document known as the " South Carolina Exposi- 
tion " (1828), the author of which was no less a 
personage than Vice-President Calhoun. Follow- 
ing, perhaps, rather than leading certain violent 
spirits of his own far from calm State, and prob- 
ably influenced by the theories of John Randolph, 
who always had a method in his madness, and of 
another Virginian, John Taylor of Caroline, Avho 
had written some strict constructionist books, he had 
let his logical mind work out a theory of State veto, 
which was an illegitimate offspring of Jefferson's 
language in tlie Kentucky Resolutions and will be 
discussed later when we come to speak of the fa- 
mous nullification movement. Here it will be suf- 
ficient to say that in the end the Abominable Tariff 
9 



130 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

recoiled on the head of Jackson, for whose benefit 
it had been devised. This was only poetic justice, 
for in the often quoted words of John Randolph, 
" the bill referred to manufactures of no sort or kind 
except the manufacture of a President of the United 
States." 

But although in South Carolina and Virginia the 
tariff was perhaps the chief topic of discussion, 
leading in the former State at least to meetings that 
indulged in very rash threats, the Presidential can- 
vass was the main thing that occupied the minds of 
American citizens in 1828. It was a thoroughly un- 
dignified affair, descending to low and false scandal 
about Jackson's wife in a way that reminds one of 
the disgusting campaign of 1884. Adams and Rush 
made the best fight they could, but Clay, their chief 
champion, sickened over his task. On the other 
liand Jackson and Calhoun, for the breach between 
them, though about to burst open, had been as yet 
prevented, had a triumphal progress, in spite of the 
charges, often true, raised against the old general. 
The hero-worship natural and not discreditable to a 
crude population carried everything before it, true 
charges and all, and, when the electoral votes were 
counted, Jackson had 178 votes to Adams's 83. 
The latter had headed a ticket generally known as 
that of the National Republicans. Jackson had 
been supported by men now not ashamed to be called 
Democrats. Thus the Democratic-Republican party 
of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe had died and 
suffered a partial transmigration of soul. The new 
Democratic party represented strict constructionist 
principles combined on the whole with national 
loyalty ; it represented also the popular party as 
opposed to the party of the few; but it represented 



THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 131 

further a principle unknown to Jefferson, the prin- 
ciple of popular self-sufficiency which prefers ob- 
sequious servants ready to do the people's will, to 
trained statesmen capable of shaping it. On the 
other hand, the National Eepublicans represented 
the Jeffersonian theory of trained statesmen sup- 
ported by popular consent, but they represented also 
ideas of a centralised, all-embracing, and active gov- 
ernment which sorted rather with the theories of 
Hamilton. This new party, of which Clay was the 
predestined leader and which soon became known by 
the borrovred name of Whig,* was not the child of 
the old Federalist party — it accepted the doctrine 
of popular support too heartily for that — but it was 
at least its adopted heir. 

After the campaign a political lull rested upon 
the country which the second session of the Twen- 
tieth Congress did little to break. Some money was 
spent on internal improvements, but on the whole 
the main thing that politicians of every stripe did 
was to wait. Xo one could predict exactly what the 
military statesman who had run such an erratic 
course in Georgia and Florida would do when he 
reached the White House; but it was quite certain 
that he would reward his friends, and naturally he 
had hosts of them waiting to receive him in Wash- 
ington, The Southerners, to do them credit, waited 
rather to see what he would do about the iniquitous 
tariff; and, as he was a Southern man, even Soutli 
Carolina retained her patience for the nonce. Mean- 
while Adams prepared for a departure strikingly 
similar to that taken by his father twenty-four years 

* This English party name had been applied to the patriots 
in the Revolution ; the loyalists on the other hand being 
known as Tories. 



132 PROGRESS OF TllK UNITED STAtES. 

before. Another party under an nntried man was 
coming into power. But although Adams also failed 
to attend his successor's inauguration, he did not 
drive out of Washington at sunrise to avoid it; nor 
did he believe, like his impetuous sire, that the cause 
of the Republic was entirely lost because of the 
advent of a new regime. He did not, however, per- 
ceive how rapidly that cause was approaching de- 
struction or what splendid service he was destined to 
do it within the next few years. 



A GENERATIO^^•S ADVANCE. I33 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A generation's advance. 

The census of 1810 revealed the fact that the 
rate of increase in population Avas slightly in excess 
of that of the previous decade; in fact it had reached 
what was to be the hig'hest point of the century — 
3G.38. The total population stood at 7,239,881— an 
increase of nearly 2,000,000. The various sections 
had not kept even pace, however, fur the rate of in- 
crease in the West had been enormous, wdiile that for 
the comparatively free ^orth was almost double 
that for the South. Thus early was the slavehold- 
iuij^ section being left behind — not only in wealth 
and ])()puhitiou but in ])olitical power, for the iSTorth 
and West Averc gaining ground in the lower House 
of Congress. The addition of 1,124,685 scpiaro 
miles to the national area through the Louisiana 
Purchase had naturally reduced the ratio of density, 
reduced it indeed to the lowest point in the Union's 
history— 3. G2. P.ut the older States in the North 
were rapidly being covered v/ith a continuous chain 
of settlements, especially Xew York and Pennsyl- 
vania; and this was true also of Kentucky, and to a 
less degree of Tennessee and of Ohio, uoav a State. 
The border line of population had been extended 
in the far South, but Creeks and Cherokees barred 
white advance, and the approaching victory of Jack- 
son (p. 71) would be needed in order that the rich 
lands of Alabama and Mississippi might be added 



134 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

to the " Cotton Belt." The Territory of Orleans 
of course furnished a settled area along the Missis- 
sippi, nearly to the limits of the State of Louisiana 
shortly to be admitted ; but in the vast Louisiana 
Territory proper, settlements could be found only 
at the mouth of the Arkansas River and at St. Louis. 
Indiana Territory was as yet no better off, and the 
newly formed Territories of Illinois and Michigan 
were still wildernesses save in the neighbourhood of 
Detroit. 

With regard now to the relative position of in- 
dividual States and cities, it should be noted that 
Virginia has not yet lost her primacy, but that l^ew 
York has changed j)laces with Pennsylvania and is 
now second in rank, while Massachusetts is still 
fourth, and Xorth Carolina fifth. Ten years later 
Virginia had changed places with !N^ew York and 
N'orth Carolina stood just below Pennsylvania, 
while the new States of Ohio and Kentucky had 
wedged themselves above Massachusetts, which had 
lost Maine. In 1830, however, Virginia had 
changed again, this time with Pennsylvania, and 
Ohio had passed ]N^orth Carolina. Certainly the 
convention then framing a new constitution for the 
Old Dominion was right in devoting a large portion 
of its time to the discussion of slavery, even if little 
good came of its deliberations. As for the urban 
population, the census of 1810 showed that there had 
been an increase of nearly one per cent, with respect 
to the total number of inhabitants. The United 
States was therefore still a nation of farmers. This 
it remained in 1820, which gave the same percentage 
as 1810, and in 1830, which showed, however, a 
gain of nearly two per cent., in consequence chiefly 
of the growth of the manufacturing spirit and of 



A GENERATION'S ADVANCE. 135 

the rise of small towns in the West — a phenomenoii 
which had indeed been noticeable in the second 
decade. In the latter year New York, which the 
Erie Canal had made the great seaport of the coun- 
try, contained about 200,000 inhabitants and had 
passed Philadelphia for good. Philadelphia, Balti- 
more, and Boston had all grown also, but another 
Southern city, Xew Orleans, had passed Charleston, 
which now took the sixth place, little foreseeing, per- 
haps, that by 1840 it would drop to tenth, being 
passed for example by Cincinnati, which in 1810 
had consisted of a few houses dotting the hillsides 
rising from the Ohio. 

Returning now to consider the country as a whole, 
Ave find the census of 1820 giving the Union the 
same area as that of 1810, for although Spain had 
engaged to yield up Florida, the transfer had not 
taken place. Inside the stationary area populatioji 
has been steadily filling up waste places and the 
frontier line has been pushed forward. Louisiana, 
Alabama, and ]\Iississippi have been admitted as 
States in the South-'West ; Indiana and Illinois in the 
Xorth-West ; Maine in the K'orth-East ; and Missouri 
is kept out only on account of the controversy about 
slavery. Arkansas and Indian Territories have been 
formed, and Michigan Territory now includes the 
future State of that name, together with the region 
later to be occupied by Wisconsin and part of Min- 
nesota. The most populous of all these new States 
is Maine, which has nearly 300,000 inhabitants; the 
least populous is Illinois with about 55,000. The 
frontier States being so thinly settled, one is not 
surprised to find that after the admission of Mis- 
souri in 1821, a halt in State-making is called for 
fifteen years, Arkansas and Michigan not entering 



136 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the Union until 1836 and 1837 respectively. The 
rich lands of the jS^orth- and South-West must first 
be filled up, which is an easier task now that in both 
regions the most troublesome Indians have been 
crushed, and that steamboats are plying upon in- 
land rivers.* 

In the task of filling the 500,000 square miles of 
territory settled in 1820 a population of 9,633,822 
was available, being an increase of nearly 2,400,- 
000, or 33.07 per cent. The rate of increase in the 
Xew England and Middle States had fallen to 21:.95 
per cent., Connecticut being the only State that 
showed a gain. The Xew Englanders, especially, 
M'ere moving westward. The Southern Atlantic 
States showed a decreased percentage, but the drop 
Avas not so marked as in the East. The West and 
South- West also were not increasing at such a fabu- 
lous rate as in the decade just passed, but they still 
showed remarkable gains. The long waggon trains 
of emigrants that were to be observed shortly after 
the War of 1812 wending their way slowly through 
Xew York, or Pennsylvania, or Georgia had done 
their Avork effectually. Thousands of log-cabins had 
gone up and hundreds of thousands of acres of virgin 
land had been purchased from the government at 
two dollars per acre, a fourth only of the purchase 
money being required in cash. On such terms every 
American could be a farmer if he wished, nor was 
it any wonder that the free-born native showed a 
dislike to being a hired man. 

The census of 1830 gave the Union an increase 

of area amounting to nearly 60,000 square miles, 

for Spain had at last let go her hold on Florida, 

The new Territory hardly affected the total popula- 

* They began in 1811. 



A GENERATIONS ADVANCE. 137 

tiou, however, for it did not contain quite 35,000 
inhabitants, apart from the Indians who were to 
give trouble for years. The work of filling up the 
existing States and Territories, which save for the 
admission of Missouri remained practically un- 
altered, had gone on steadily. Waste places were 
still to be found — for example in JSTorthern New 
York, in Pennsylvania, and in the mountainous 
parts of Virginia, — but population was increasing 
in density around them, and such an increase was 
especially noticeable in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, 
the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama. The manu- 
facturing Xorth, the farming West, and the cotton- 
planting Far South were all thriving. The Xorth 
Atlantic and South Atlantic States actually showed 
a larger percentage of increase of population than 
they had done in the preceding decade. Massachu- 
setts gained about six per cent. ; Virginia, four ; 
Georgia, now that its Indian troubles were passing, 
about sixteen and a half. The jSTorth-Western States 
fell behind as did also the South-Western, but they 
could not expect to keep up their huge percentages. 
The whole country, however, increased its percent- 
age slightly and could boast of a total population of 
12,866,020. But we have dealt with figures long 
enough ; it is time to see what changes have come 
over the character of the American in this eventful 
period of thirty years that has witnessed the second 
war with Great Britain, the rise of the great Demo- 
cratic party, the acquisition of nearly 1,200,000 
square miles of territory, and the admission to the 
Union of eight new States. 

Of course there was not in 1830, and there is not 
now, a common American character. Not only are 
the people of the various sections radically different 



138 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

in many respects, but the people of almost every 
State differ from their surrounding neighbours. 
The Southerner differs markedly from the Xew 
Englander; the inhabitants of Virginia, Xorth and 
Soiith Carolina would be easily distinguished from 
one another by a competent observer. And what is 
true of 1899 was just as true, probably more true 
of 1830. But along with radical differences go rad- 
ical i^oints of likeness, so that we are warranted 
in speaking of a national American character, which 
was indeed beginning to impress itself upon early 
foreign visitors like Harriet Martineau, Alexis de 
Tocqueville, and Charles Dickens, 

The foundation of this national character was, 
as we have seen, British in the main, for, even in 
1830, foreign immigration had affected the popula- 
tion but slightly. There wore German and Hugue- 
not and Dutch stocks, but they had harmonised with 
the English and Scotch-Irish stocks ; the people who 
were fast filling up jSTorth-West and South- West were, 
on the whole, homogeneous native Americans. And 
both in the cis-Alleghany and in the trans-Alle- 
ghany regions they were in many ways different 
Americans from their fathers of 1801, They were 
still rural and provincial, but they were far more 
wide-awake and more truly national in their spirit. 
Their boundless area seemed to promise them a bound- 
less future. Their naval victories and Jackson's 
success at Xew Orleans had saved their pride, and 
their contentions with France and their war witli 
Great Britain had welded their interests. Their 
break with tradition and overthrow of aristocracy 
as represented by the downfall of the Federalists, 
the success of the democratic experiment for a quar- 
ter of a century, culminating in the election of Jack- 



A GENERATION'S ADVANCE. 139 

son, made them feel that they were continuing 
the role of the Revolutionary Fathers as the politi- 
cal saviours of the world. They had become politi- 
cally self-conscious ; they celebrated with enthu- 
siasm Lafayette's tour and the fiftieth anniversary 
of the Republic ; they sympathised heartily with 
foi:eign struggles for liberty whether in South Amer- 
ica or in France or in Greece. 

But i^erhaps the most potent cause of change in 
the national character was the economic impetus 
of the period. Thanks to Whitney cotton-planting 
seemed to promise untold wealth to the newer South 
and the South- West; thanks to the Embargo, the 
war, and the protective tariff manufacturing offered 
greater chances for individual and corporate fortunes 
in the Middle States and jSTew England than farm- 
ing, trade, or even commerce had done. The im- 
provement in the facilities of transportation repre- 
sented by the steamboat, the canal, and the incipient 
railroad also promised to weld East and West to- 
gether in a mutual j)i'Osperity. Agricultural and 
other products could be laid down at jSTew York for 
a cost that seemed trifling when compared with the 
heavy charges for even local freight of the genera- 
tion just gone. In short the American was fired by 
the thought that he, his locality, his section, and his 
country had only to be ingenious and to work hard 
for a few years in order to dominate the finances of 
the Avorld. Energy and inventiveness became there- 
fore the most conspicuous notes of the national char' 
acter. The cities in particular woke up. Threatened 
with the loss of their Western trade the citizens 
of Baltimore in 1827 determined to build a rail- 
road to the Ohio River, and began its construction 
the next year, By January, 1831, a steam loco- 



UO PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

motive had been placed on the tracks of the South 
Carolina Railroad at Charleston, and in a few years 
the Sonth was planning for railway connection with 
the West as zealously, though not so successfully, 
as the enterprising Xorth. 

The task of recounting the industrial revolution 
of the century belongs to another volume of this 
series, but it should be noted here that the steam- 
boat and the railroad, while the greatest, were not 
the only instrumentalities through which the ma- 
terial progress of America had reached the high 
vantage ground of 1S30. Historians of the type of 
Professor McMaster have pointed out to us that late 
in the twenties American farmers began to use the 
threshing machine and mechanics to use edge-tools 
of native manufacture. About this time anthra- 
cite coal began to be generally consumed as fuel — 
a fact of great importance in the history of that 
iron and steel industry that was later to show such a 
great development. Inventors, too, were as busy as 
bees. Fairbanks was perfecting the platform scales 
which he was to patent early in the next decade, 
and Morse was developing that interest in electrical 
matters that was to lead in a few years to his in- 
vention of the telegraph. 

The mention of these names reminds us that it 
is unfair to lay exclusive stress upon the material 
elements in American progress; there was also an 
important spiritual element. The American might 
be shrewd, but he was also honest : he thought much 
of this world, but he M-as also religious, though with- 
out bigotry; he looked after his own interests, but 
he was also philanthropical. ]\[en were everywhere 
Avaking \^^ from the s}">iritual lethargy that had 
characterised the eighteenth century; the divorce of 



A GENERATION'S ADVANCE. 141 

Church and State by no iiieaiis meant a religious de- 
cline. Peo[)le wlio were advanced liberals in poli- 
tics were almost hidebound in their religions prej- 
udices, although these were bi-eaking down in Kew 
England, precisely where tiiey had been strongest. 
But the spirit of persecution was almost entirely 
absent save for an occasional mob-outbreak against 
the Roman Catholics. It was more congenial to the 
spirit of the times to found emanci{)ation and tem- 
jKM'auce societies, the latter doing far moi'e good 
than the former.* 

In education, technically speaking, the generation 
had made a gi'eat advance. The older colleges had 
waked up, and in tiie University of Virginia Jeffer- 
son had founded an institution of higher character 
in some respects than the English-sjieaking woi-ld 
was familiar with. INEore important, howevei', was 
the development of the commonschool system, 
especially throughout the West, where a thirty-sixth 
portion of the i^ublic lands was devoted to its su])- 
port. High schools, too, had begun in Boston, in 
1821, to foster a zeal for education in classes hither- 
to lacking in such ambitit)n. Thus Americans were 
able to boast that, while the Old World might pos- 
sess more culture in its upper classes, the Xew pos- 
sessed far the more intelligent population. With 
illiteracy widely and rai)idly decreasing, the Ameri- 
can farmer could never become ajieasant, the Amer- 
ican labourer would easily prove himself the most 
efficient workingman on earth. In the South alone 
did educational conditions appear unprosperous. 



* Tliere was great room iV)r temperance reform, as liquor 
was used by all classes of society to an extent that is now 
surprising. The nu>vement took a public character when 
jMaine passed a prohibition law in 18r»l. 



142 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

They were not so bad as some historians have rep- 
resented, for there was not a little culture among 
the planters, "who employed jirivate tutors and sent 
their sons to Xorthern colleges ; but the few free- 
schools maintained were as a rule wretched farces, 
and thus the lower whites had less cliance to rise 
than in any other section. Jefferson had seen thai 
truly popular education is the only sure foundation 
on which a democracy can be built, but he could 
not induce his native State and section to see it. 

Yet, after all, the South was not undemocratic 
in a way. Inside the planting aristocracy equality 
l^revailed as a rule, and even the poorer whites were 
treated with respect, especially with regard to their 
political rights so far as these had been acquired. 
Rich and poor turned out on court-day to hear some 
local statesman address his constituents on the ques- 
tions of the hour. In fact political education was 
perhaps more widespread in the South than in the 
Xorth, and certainly M-as far more widespread in 
America at large than in Europe. Of course tliere 
was more real democracy in the Xew South-West 
than in the older Southern States, for the conditions 
of frontier existence had swept away nearly all 
traces of a caste system. The backwoodsman was 
bound by the nature of things to be a true democrat, 
and if he was still uncouth in 1S30, he could never- 
theless point with pride to Andrew Jackson in the 
White House. The more polished Tventuckian could 
point with equal pride to the dashing Clay; the 
!^[issonrian to the ponderous but genuinely power- 
ful Benton ;* the Illinoisian would soon point with 
greater pride to Abraham Lincoln. 

* Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who will be mentioned 
often hereafter. 



A GENERATION'S ADVANCE. 143 

But not merely in polities, in war, in industry, in 
mechanical ingenuitj had the American of 1830 
made a reputation for himself. He was actually 
beginning to develop his ii?sthetic faculties. He 
naturally aimed first at comfort and convenience in 
his houses and household belongings, especially in 
his cities ; he was ju'oud of the public buildings rising 
at Washington, but his renaissance of architecture 
was to come later. He could point, however, to the 
fact that Benjamin West, Copley, Gilbert Stuart, 
Washington AUston, and the line miniature painter 
^falbone were countrymen of his who had done good 
work before the century dawned and who would 
probably not lack successors. In helles-Ieitres also 
his cause was not hopeless. At the beginning of the 
century only one professional author of considerable 
power was living in America — the ill-fated Charles 
Brockden Brown, a novelist whose works deserve 
a greater currency than they at present possess. 
Prior to Brown only Franklin and Jonathan Ed- 
wards had risen to very high rank as authors, and the 
character of their writings was prevailingly un- 
resthetic. By 1830 Bryant, Irving, and Cooper had 
done work that showed that the Addisonian essays 
of Dennie and the heroic strains of Joel Barlow that 
had charmed the preceding generation had had their 
day. American literature still preserved a British 
flavour and perhaps would always preserve it ; but 
there could be little question that the query, " Wlio 
reads an American book ? " would not long be asked. 
In the next two decades a brilliant school of his- 
torians was to arise, Longfellow, Poe, Hawthorne, 
Emerson, and Whittier w(n'e to lay the foundation 
of their fame, and ISTew England at least was to un- 
dergo a literary and philosophical awakening. 



144 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The outlook therefore seemed prosperous in all 
directions. But slavery had yet to be reckoned with 
in the political sphere ; a reckless spirit of speculation 
already engendered, and ignorance of tlie funda- 
mentals of finance would more than once interfere 
seriously with material progress; and in the sphere 
of manners and culture the outstripping of educa- 
tion by democracy would have deleterious results. 
Already it was possible to caricature the American 
and yet not do him gross injustice. His lank cheeks 
and nasal tones, his lack of dignity and repose, his 
naive eagerness to know what other peoples thought 
of him and his childish wrath when an unfavour- 
able opinion was expressed, his provincialism, his 
materialism, — in short his general lack of charm 
naturally made an impression upon travellers, who 
were often blind to the better points of his charac- 
ter. Provincial and prosaic the average American 
of 1830 certainly was, but so was the average Euro- 
pean, and on the whole the former had no reason 
to envy the latter. Besides, throughout the country 
there was a small class of men of culture fit for any 
society — a class likely to increase more rapidly in 
America than elsewhere. And the body of the 
people, if vulgar, was hearty and honest, and bettor 
off than the European masses. There was, of course, 
a great deal of nonsense talked in America about the 
" effete monarchies '' of Europe, yet there was just 
as much talked about America by Europeans, some 
of whom had been misled by superficial travellers, 
some by their desire to see the Republic fail. But 
there is no need to dwell on these international mis- 
imderstandings. Two generations have nearly 
sufficed to clear them away, and M'lien one remem- 
bers how long Englishmen and Frenchmen have mi-J- 



A CxENERATION'S ADVANCE. 145 

understood one another, one is inclined to regard 
the rapprochement of Europe and America as rapid 
rather than slow. Tliat it should have come was 
most desirable, however, for whatever stress mav be 
laid upon the originality of American life and char- 
acter, it remains true that, in the large, American 
history is an extension of European history. 

It was a transplanted European civilisation that 
the American had to develop in a virgin country 
under peculiarly favourable conditions, and in his 
success or failure Europe and the world had an abid- 
ing interest. By 1830 the initial stages of his task 
had been accomplished with conspicuous success ; 
the next generation was destined, however, to face a 
graver problem than had perhaps ever confronted 
any young nation. Xew World democracy would have 
to grapple with a foe introduced from the Old 
World. If it succeeded in putting slavery down, it 
would not only have a clear field in which to move 
toward its goal, it w^ould also furnish Europe with 
the most important of political lessons. If democ- 
racy could conquer slavery, there was nothing in 
European political or social life that could perma- 
nently impede its victorious progress. 
10 



PART TWO. 

THE STRUGGLE WITH SLAVERY. 



CHAPTER IX. 

" THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSOx/' 

The part played bv Jackson himself in tis in- 
auguration was sufficiently dignified ; but it was 
really the sovereign people that was inaugurated, 
and like most parvenus the people, as represented 
by the office seekers who liad crowded to Washing- 
ton, behaved badly enough. The new President 
added to his soldierly bearing the dignity of old 
age and of unaffected manners learned in Xature's 
school ; his inaugural address, if brief, did not of- 
fend by lack of taste ; and the ceremonies were 
simple in accordance with the recent widower's de- 
sires. But the mob pursued him from the Capit'd 
to the White House, entered with tumult that no 
longer private abode, broke plates and dishes in its 
eagerness to get something to eat, and actually 
pressed Jackson into a closer corner than any enemy 
had ever done. The reign of aristocracy was over at 
last, but so was that of decorum. 

There was, of course, nothing unnatural in what 
happened at Washington on March 4, 1829. In a 
new country with a liberal republican government, 
146' 



" THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON." 1^,7 

it was onlv a matter of time when the people would 
become conscious of the fact that they were the 
source of all power, and would be seized with the de- 
sire to make use of their own prerogatives. The 
advent of the people to jiowcr Avas but the natural 
result of the emancipation of tlie individual brain 
bv the Renaissance, of the individual conscience by 
the Reformation, and of the individual will by these 
two great movements as well as by the political 
revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies. As it is impossible to thiidv of any backward 
step in this progress of evolution, and as it is con- 
sonant with belief in a beneficent Providence to hold 
that the world is on the whole improving, it seems 
wise to trust that the people are being surely if 
slowly educated to use well their immense powers ; in 
other words, that democracy is realising the hopes 
of its friends and falsifying the denunciations of its 
foes. From this point of view it is idle to inveigh 
against Andrew Jackson as though he were indi- 
vidually responsible for all the blunders and crimes 
the American people have committed since his day. 
But it is equally idle to deny that a political Pan- 
demonium was let loose in Washington at the time 
of liis inauguration, and that a considerable num- 
ber of the evil spirits thus enlarged have been ever 
since plying their nefarious business both at the 
national capital and throughout the country. In 
short, altliough the historian of the United States 
for the past three-quarters of a century may con- 
sistently be an optimist, he cannot be a wholesale 
eulogist without forfeiting his self-respect. 

The rush made for the White House on the day 
of the inauguration was but typical of the set made 
at Jackson for the next few months bv the "■ friends," 



148 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

especially tho editors, avIio had helped to secure his 
election. Kewards for friends, punishment for foes, 
had been Jackson's lifelong motto, and he adhered 
to it faithfully now. Under the tenure of office 
act * he could dispose of many places without re- 
sorting to actual removals of worthy incumbents; 
but such removals were also indulged in, the terms 
of dismissal being made needlessly harsh by some 
of his lieutenants in power. Ko reasons were 
proffered to the unfortunate man whose office was 
wanted by some clamorous Jacksonian ; the blow 
fell without warning; and, if contemporary ob- 
servers have not exaggerated, Washington for some 
months underwent the horrors of a real reign of 
terror, in which suicide and insanity were not un- 
heard of. And yet Jackson was a kind-hearted 
man. He was also an autocrat, however, and one 
whose feelings were easily played upon. Offices 
could be wheedled out of him by flattery, and to 
arouse his ire against a subordinate official was to 
seal that unfortunate's doom. He has even been ac- 
cused of duplicity in some instances, with having 
lulled his victims by promises before allowing the 
axe to fall. Such charges should not probably be 
taken very seriously. There were two men in Jack- 
son, as there are in every frontiersman. The child 
of nature, he was still a savage ; the child of civilisa- 
tion, he was also a gentleman. It was the gentle- 
man that invited the trembling official to take a 
social glass of wine with a President wdio had been 
satisfied that the subordinate's loyalty to Adams 
had not passed the bounds of discretion; it was the 
savage that was goaded by a designing Secretary to 
take vengeance for past insults and to reward a 
* See ante, Part I., Cliap. VI., p. 109. 



"THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON." 149 

deserving friend by declaring vacant the place of the 
very man who the day before had pledged long life 
to the Administration. 

The number of removals made under Jackson 
•within a few months of his entrance upon office has 
been variously estimated at from about 700 to 2,000. 
As many of the officers dismissed had subordinates 
who went with them, the distress caused by this in- 
troduction of the "■ spoils system " * must have been 
great and widespread. That Jackson realised the 
fact may, perhaps, be inferred from the lame para- 
graphs he devoted to tbe subject in his first mess- 
age. He actually ventured to make the sophistical 
statement that " he who is removed has the same 
means of obtaining a living that are enjoyed by the 
millions who never held office " — and perhaps with 
his simple notions about earning a living he be- 
lieved what he wrote. He doubtless also believed 
that his ])roposal to extend the tenure of oflice act 
would be salutary in its effects, and judging from 
recent events, his beliefs are shared by the present 
Executive of the United States and by quite a large 
})ortion of the American people. This only goes to 
show that while seventy years may be the measure 
of a man's life, it is not the measure even of a 
nation's youth. 

With regard now to the characters of the men ap- 
])ointed to fill the vacancies so summarily created, 
it seems to be quite clear that Jackson did not in- 
tend to hurt the public service by foisting incom- 
petent or vicious officials upon it, but that, as might 

* It was so called in consequence of Senator Marcy's frank 
enunciation of the prime article of tlie political faith cherished 
by himself and his fellow Democrats of New York, viz., that 
"to the victor belong the spoils." 



150 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

have been expeeted, his k^iuliiiii' advisers caused liim 
to make many such appointments. Some of them 
^vel•e so bad that even friendly senators could not 
bring themselves to confirm them.'^' Jackson was a 
keen judge of character at times, but like many an- 
other autocrat he preferred to surround himself \vith 
men that did not thwart his will. Hence it was that 
the supple Martin Van Buren, his Secretary of 
State, gained so much inlluence over him. As for 
the rest of the Cabinet, they were ail more or less 
mediocre men who were destined soon to be re- 
placed, partly on account of a rather absurd episode 
which may be recounted here instead of iu its chrono- 
logical phice. 

The portfolio of war had been given to Jackson's 
Tennessee friend. Major John J I. Eaton. The 
Litter had just married a dashing widow, the 
daughter of a Washington innkeeper, who in her 
former relations with Eaton had rather scandalised 
the society of the Capital. On her return as the wife 
of a member of the Cabinet, society, private and 
official, Avas greatly stirred. The wives and daughters 
of the other Secretaries followed the lead set by the 
wife of the Vice-President, and refused to recognise 
Mrs. Eaton socially. The latter used her powers of 
fascination upon the other sex and secured cham- 
pions, chief of whom was Jackson himself. Van 
Buren, a Avidower, had nothing to lose by falling in 
line and giving the fair outcast a ball. Bnt Creeks 
and Spaniards were much easier to subdue than 
Washington Avomen, as Jackson found to his cost 
Avhen the wife of his own nephew and private sec- 
retary sided witli the enemy and had to be banished 
to Tennessee for contumacy. 

* See Appendix A., article 2, section 3. 



"THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON." 151 

Finally a hollow truce was patclied up in the 
Cabinet, but it lasted only a short while. In the 
spring of 1831, Jackson, having learned of Cal- 
houn's failure to defend him in the matter of the 
Seminole war,* broke with the latter and deter- 
mined to get rid of three of his counsellors who 
M'ere friends of the Vice-President's. This stroke 
of policy at once avenged Mrs. Eaton and showed 
how hopeless were Calhoun's chances of succeeding 
Jackson as President, Thus a purely sectional bias 
Avas given to a great career, and the cause of the 
Union received a deadly hlow. But Jackson was 
then thinking chiefly of punishing a supposed enemy, 
of securing himself a strong cabinet that would ad- 
vance his own plans for re-election, and of settling 
the final succession on the complaisant Van Buren. 
His schemes were carried out with an astuteness 
hardly smacking of the backwoods. Van Buren 
and Eaton resigned as though to relieve the Presi- 
dent of the strain of managing an inharmonious 
Cabinet ; then Jackson hinted that the other mem- 
bers, save the Postmaster-General, now for the first 
time admitted to full rank in the Cabinet, would 
do well to follow the delicate example set, and when 
hints failed, he dropped circumlocutions. 

There was naturally a scandal at such high- 
handed proceedings, but the autocrat had his way. 
Edward Livingston of Louisiana, an able jurist, suc- 
ceeded Van Buren, who was subsecpiently named for 
the English mission but not confirmed by the Senate ; 
Lewis Cass of Michigan took Eaton's place; and 
Roger B. Taney of IMaryland became Attorney-Gen- 
eral. The two latter politicians were destined to 
become marked men, and the entire Cabinet as re- 
* See ante, Part I., Chap. VI., p. 95. 



152 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

modelled was a fairly strong body. But Jacksou, 
after all, preferred "what Avas called his '' Kitchen 
Cabinet '' to his constitutional council. He relied 
upon old friends like William B. Lewis of Ten- 
nessee, who had managed his campaigns for him, 
and upon a shrewd wire-puller named Amos 
Kendall, an enemy of Clay's and therefore a man 
after Jackson's heart. These two, with a few other 
similar characters, knew how to flatter and manage 
the old warrior, bnt, when all is said, the probabilities 
are that even they stood aside whenever Jackson 
took the bit between his teeth. " Old Hickory '' ar^ 
lie had lone; been called was in everv wav the chief 
man in his own Administration. 

Bnt although the personal element counts for 
more in Jackson's regime than in the Administra- 
tion of any other President save Jefferson, and al- 
though, if one were aiming at picturesque narration, 
the temptation to dwell upon this element would be 
almost irresistible, the influence which the period 
as a v\lK>le exerted upon the subse(|ucnt political his- 
tory of the country is much more important, and 
must for the future receive our undivided atten- 
tion. 

The Twenty-first Congi-ess assembled iu Pecem- 
ber, 1829, and naturally heard the new President's 
message with considerable interest. Tt was a long 
document, the work iu part, apparently, of several 
hands ; it was, moreover, a state paper that eom- 
j>ared well, perhaps surprisingly well, with the 
similar ])roductions of Jackson's scholarly prede- 
cessors. Tie could not, indeed, succeed in defending 
thoroughly his wholesale removals from office, and 
he might have refrained from alluding to lhe hypo- 
thetical bargain between Adams and Clay, but at 



" THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON." 153 

least, except on (he tariff, he spoke like a man with 
convictions on Avhieh he would unhesitatingly act. 
On internal improvements he took Southern, i.e. 
strict constructionist ground; he spoke of the Union 
not as a nation, but as a confederacv ; he upheld 
Georgia in her contest with the Indians; he threw 
out a strong hint that the National Bank ought n(.»t 
to be rechartered; but he gave the South Carolina 
theorists no reason to believe that he would allow 
them to resist the laws of the Union with impunity. 
Yet actions are more potent than words. Soon 
after Jackson was elected, the Georgia legislature 
passed an act extending the State's jurisdiction over 
the lands which the Cherokees had refused to cede. 
This act was obviously an equitable one, for an in- 
dependent Indian State inside one of the sovereign 
members of the Union was an anomaly not to be 
tolerated ; yet in law the measure Avas of doubtful va- 
lidity, as the State showeil when its legislature bade 
Governor Gilmer disregard a citation issued by tho 
Supreme Court of the United States in a case 
brought to test the Avhole matter. The next year, 
183 1, the Court held that the Indians had the Con- 
stitution on the side of their claims, but that nothing 
could be done in the i>remises. I'he Court could not 
fight a State, and the President would not. Jack- 
son has been praised for his common sense in not 
enforcing the legal rights of the Indians, and cer- 
tainly his ]n-oposal, which Congress soon acted on, 
that an Indian Territory should be formed in the 
unsettled West, to which Eastern Indians might be 
deported, was a statcsmanly one. But did not Jack- 
son encourage individual States to deny, with the 
Carolina XulHfiers, the ultimate supremacy of the 
Supreme Court in the delicate matter of determiu- 



154 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ing the constitutionality of laws, v/iiether State or 
national, and was it common sense in the Chief 
Executive of the Union to abandon its Judiciary 
in the hour of need ? Jackson thought it was in 
1831, and again in 1832, when Chief Justice 
Marshall ordered the release of missionaries in the 
Indian country, who had been arrested for refusing 
to take an oath of allegiance to Georgia. The State 
would not obey the mandate, and Jackson is re- 
ported to have said : " John Marshall has made his 
decision, now let him enforce it." Th^e alleged 
speech and the indisjjutable presidential inaction 
were not indicative of high statesmanship, but 
would rather have been productive of anarchy in 
any country not so fortunately situated as the 
United States. Xor is it easy to believe that Jack- 
son's attitude toward Marshall did not lend some 
encouragement to the Xullifiers, of whom we shall 
soon speak at some length. 

Meanwhile a word must be said about Marshall, 
who died near the close of Jackson's regime (1835) 
after having filled for more than a generation a posi- 
tion inferior only to the presidency itself. Marshall 
is confessedly the greatest American jurist — per- 
haps no other jurist that ever lived has Avrought 
such political effects as he has done by means 
of his lucid decisions which steadily upheld the su- 
premacy of the Union over the States. He was not 
a marvellous lawyer, but he was every inch a states- 
man. He was a Federalist and carried to the bench 
the vital principle of that party — belief in the 
necessity for a stable government. Thus when 
Jefferson became President and Marshall Chief 
Justice, it was a case of democracy's commanding 
and manning the Ship of State, but of aristocracy's 



'• THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON." 155 

keeping the compass. Slowly but surely Marshall 
developed the principle that it is the function of 
the Judiciary to decide when any law, State or 
national, is in conflict with the Constitution and 
therefore void. But such decisions could not re- 
main negative ; therefore a body of " judge-made 
law," which has been acquiesced in by government 
and people, has to be added to the Avritten docu- 
ment before the full organic law of the land lies 
before the student. It is impossible here to cite or 
comment on even the leading cases, such as Martin 
vs. Hunter's Lessee (1816), McCullough vs. Mary- 
land (ISID), Dartmou^th College vs. Woodward 
(1819), and Cohens vs. Virginia (1821); but it 
may be confidently asserted that a knowledge of 
the main points of Marshall's career — for living and 
dead he is the Supreme Court — is absolutely neces- 
sary to any fair comprehension of the history of the 
American people. In him the national respect for 
law, together with the national habit of seeking a 
legal basis for every political action of importance, 
will be found personified. 

The reverence for the Supreme Court which Mar- 
shall had been slowly inculcating had taken little 
hold upon extreme States-rights men, especially in 
South Carolina. These theorists clung to the idea 
that the Union was the result of a compact between 
sovereign States, and they could not believe that a 
mere department of a government that was itself a 
creature of the States could legitimately presume 
to decide that the latter must obey a law of the 
Union not to their liking. From a purely legal 
point of view there w'as something to be said in 
favour of this Southern contention ; but from the 
point of view of political theory it was obvious that 



] 5G PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

for each State to decide whether or not it Avould 
obey a hnv of the Union Avonkl speedilv induce an- 
archy. Yet many South Carolinians, liery by na- 
ture and exasi>erated by the i^rowth of protection in 
the Xorth and East, had adopted this theory of 
nullitication or State veto — which Avas a step be- 
yoml the State remonstrances advised by Jetferson 
and Madison in their famous Kentucky and Vir- 
ginia Eesolutions of 1708-90 — especially after it; 
had been put into a consistent shajx' by the vigor- 
ously logical mind of Calhoun. But for such honest 
and inii)etuous peojile to adopt a theory was to use 
it, and it was not long before Ilayne gave it full 
utti>rance in the Senate. 

A debate had arisen on a resolution by Senator 
Foote of Connecticut touching the liberal policy of 
the government with regard to the sale of the }niblie 
lands in the West.* Xew England, needing labour- 
ers for her growing manufacturing enterprises, dis- 
liked to see them tempted to emigrate to tho newer 
States. Xaturally Benton of Missouri stood up for 
his section, while Ilayne. avIio wanted to punisli 
taritf-abetting Xe\\' England more than to aiil a 
section barred to slavery by the late einniu'oniiso. 
came to his rescue. The debate soon widened to a 
discussion of the remedies for aggressitni on the part 
of the Union, and Ilayne unfolded the theory of 
Xnllitication, Calhoun silently approving from his 
Vice-Presidential chair. 

Webster, now in the Senate which, with the 
speedy reappearance of Clay and with Calhomi in 

* The prico at which the laiuls were soUl w;is lilieral. but 
Benton luul solid jii-fjunients on his side in the Uintj fight lie 
made agjiinst the policy of making revenue out of the public 
territorv. 



"THE REIHN OF ANDREW JACKSON." I57 

a seat on the floor, was soon to enter upon its period 
of meridian glory, replied to Hajne, who was him- 
self an orator of no mean ealibre. ITayne retnrned 
to the charge in a long speeeli and Webster answered 
— the two performances eonstitnting the most im- 
portant debate in American annals and ranking high 
in the history of the world's oratory. IMerely as 
a speech Webster's effort was snperior, and as an 
argument it d(>molished the tlieory of N'nllitication, 
which indeed was opposed by a large number of 
South Carolinians and by Southerners generally. 
To stay in the Union yet not obey its laws seemed 
foolish even to men who believed in the right of 
secession. But it may be doubted whetlier Web- 
ster's speeeli was altogether so great as his friends 
thought at the time c»f its deliverance or as posterity 
has been taught to believe. Against the tlieory of 
compact he advanced the theory that the govern- 
ment of the United States and the Constitution 
were the people's — :" made for the people ; made by 
the people; an<l answerable to the people." lie be- 
lieved what he said, most of his contemporaries not 
living in the South believed it, and most Americans 
l)elieve it now. Yet it is very questionable whether 
he was any more right from the point of view of 
history, than llayne was from tliat of political theory 
and common sense. To men of North, East, and 
West the government was on that 26tli day of Jan- 
uary, 1830, truly a popular government, and the 
United States formed a nation; but a large majority 
of the Founders had seemingly regarded it as a gov- 
ernment formed by sovereign States, and the agri- 
cultural, slaveholding, non-progressive South con- 
tinued so to regard it. Tt may cheerfully be granted 
that a government of balanced sovereignty could not 



158 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

work, tlmt sovorcipity liad to gravitate toward the 
general govermneiit, tliat Welister truly enunciated 
the results of histoi-y. But it should also be granted 
that Hayne's theory of State sovereignty was natur- 
ally attractive to a section which had to cling to 
minority rights in order to save an imperilled in- 
stitution, and that it had a sufficient basis in history 
and verbal law to give it a vitality that could be 
quenched and stilied only after four years of civil 
war. Webster bore off the honours of the debate, 
but not to the extent claimed by most historians. 

After the Senatorial contest Calhoun and his 
friends determined to find out where Jackson would 
stand should South Carolina undertake to pronounce 
the obnoxious Tariff of 1S2S unconstitutional on 
the ground that it was grievous to a single section. 
A banquet was given on Jefferson's birthday (April 
13, 1830), and Southern speakers expressed ultra 
States-rights views ; but Jackson's volunteer toast was 
" Our Federal Union: it must be preserved." This 
might have been expected, for Jackson represented 
a new State and therefore was more imbued witli 
love for the Union than with State pride, and he 
had already treated the tariff as constitutional. Still 
his action with regard to Georgia pointed the other 
way, and after the break came with Calhoun, 
tlirough Crawford's instrumentality, there was less 
reason for the great Carolinian to hold his State 
back. Accordingly, in the summer of 1831 he is- 
sued " An Address to the People of South Carolina " 
in which he expounded fully the theory of State 
veto which he had made his own. 

It soon became time to act, unless indeed the 
theorists were to eat their words. The Twenty- 
second Congress in its first session discussed the 



"THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON." 159 

tariff question thoronghly and in July, 1832, passed 
a new act which did away with most of the bad fea- 
tures of the law of 1828, but by no means abandoned 
the theory of protection. Calhoun at once published 
another manifesto and his State answered his call. 
The legislature called a convention — such a body 
more fully representing the State — and the latter 
]>assed an ordinance nullifying the tariff acts of 1828 
and 1832, and prohibiting the payment of duties 
under them after February, 1833. If the Union 
interfered, South Carolina would secede. This was 
in Xovember, 1832. Jackson immediat-ely issued 
a strong proclamation in which he declared that 
the laws of the Union must be executed and that 
the leaders who had seduced the people of the State, 
whom he urged to yield, liad counselled disunion 
which, if attempted by armed force, would be treason. 
But South Carolinians have never in their history 
feared anybody, not even " Old Hickory." Their 
new Governor, Ilayne, fulminated against Jackson 
in return, and Calhoun, who had resigned the Vice- 
Presidency to take Ilayne's seat in the Senate, stood 
ready to defend his own theories against all comers. 
Meanwhile, however, Jackson, with Van Buren bo- 
hind him, had swept the country for a second term 
— Clay, the candidate of the National Republicans, 
making a poor showing — and the old hero took this 
popular verdict to mean that he was to make short 
work of the Xullifiers. He accordingly asked for 
a bill to enforce the tariff laws, which was granted 
him on March 1, 1833, after considerable debate, 
in which Webster and Calhoun figured. 

But while a " Force Bill " was needed to keep 
up appearances concessions might still be tried. The 
Treasurv had recommended a considerable reduction 



100 TROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of duties, and bills to that cfl'tx't liad hcon iutrodiiciMl 
into both House and Senate. In the latter body 
Clay supported a bill which would gradually re- 
duce duties in ten years to a uniform basis of twenty 
l>er cent. — a measure which would ])c :icceptabi«^ 
to the Carolinians. This bill finally became law 
on March 2, 1S33. South Carolina in the mean- 
while had hearkened to the advice of Virginia and 
to the dictates of prudence and allowed duties to b'-^ 
collected after February 1. She thus set aside her 
own ordinance illegally — at least the leading Xulli- 
fiers did; but in sui'li a saturnalia of unreason one 
does not ask for consistency any more than one asks 
for true courage in an elected body like the Senate. 
Congress M'as backing down by discussing the re- 
duction of the duties at such a crisis; South Caro- 
lina, then, could afford not to be precipitate. When 
the new Tariff Bill had been safely passed the iSTuUi- 
fication Convention reassembled and repealed its or- 
dinance, but passed another nullifving the '" Force 
Bill." 

Thus the gravest internal menace to the Union 
prior to the Civil "War ended in weak concessions on 
the one side, and in childish petulancy on the other. 
Under these circumstances it is idle to discuss at 
length the much mooted question as to which party 
won. The State was ready to fight and Jackson too, 
but if the survival of the belief in her ultimate 
power to leave the Union when she chose be a fair 
test of victory, as it seems to be, then Calhoun was 
right in claiming the victory for South Carolina. 
But after all, the main point to be determined is, 
whether or not the Xullifiers were honest in assert- 
ing that they were not disunionists at heart but only 
stood out against the Union in order to preserve 



'• THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON." Id 

it and their State in pristine constitutional purity. 
In other words, were Calhoun and his followers 
traitors or only mistaken men ? Space will not 
admit of an extended discussion of this vexed mat- 
ter, but it is safe to say that noAv, after the lapse of 
nearly seventy years, it can be plainly perceived 
that Calhotm, and presumably most of his follow- 
ers, really believed in the logical truth of the theory 
of Xullitication, and thought that if it were accepted 
by the country nothing but good would ensue. They 
felt that a consolidated government would pre^s 
harder and harder upon the slaveholding South, 
which would finally be goaded into open resistance; 
but that the triumph of Nullification would arrest 
consolidation and preserve the rights of the sections. 
They were thoroughly honourable men, to whom trea- 
son would have been abhorrent ; we are therefore at 
liberty to denounce their theories only. 
11 



162 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTEE X. 

FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 

We left Jackson only a lialf-waj victor over the 
hosts of iSTiillifieation ; we must now retrace our steps 
and watch him conduct a more successful fight 
against the ISTational Bank. Before dealing with 
this interesting topic, however, we should notice 
the fact that Jackson could be diplomatic when he 
chose and could make his diplomacy profitable. By 
1S30 he had secured the trade with the British West 
Indies, which had been lost under his predecessor, 
and had done it ]->artly at least by requesting as a 
favour what had been formerly demanded as a right. 
A lucky change in French monarchs also brought 
about, though not without a threat of war, a settle- 
ment of long-standing claims against France on 
account of spoliations that occurred during the Na- 
poleonic regime. Such successes naturally far more 
than counterbalanced the scandal produced by John 
Randolph's accepting the mission to Bussia, speml- 
ing a few days there and nearly a year in England, 
and then applying the $21,000 he drew from the 
government to the payment of his private debts. 

But tiie President, who, in the language of his 
foes, truckled to Great Britain, was soon to show 
himself almost a greater adept than Randolph in 
paying off old scores, as well as an opponent whom 
even a powerful cor])oration could not struggle with 
successfully. It will be remembered that the mes- 




HKNRV CLAY. 



FEOM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 163 

sage of 1829 proclaimed unmistakably Jackson's 
hostility to the Bank of the United States, which 
then seemed a thoroughly sound institution with a 
charter still good for several years. As a Western 
Democrat Jackson probably started with inherited 
and acquired prejudices, more or less grounded, 
against great moneyed corporations,* but he seems 
to have become specially incensed against the Bank 
on account of the unwillingness of its President, 
jSTicholas Biddle, to remove the head of a 'New Hamp- 
shire branch who had been accused of political fav- 
ouritism. Biddle was an able man, but was too confi- 
dent of his own position, and in liis correspondence 
with the Secretary of the Treasury he unwittingly 
made an enemy of Jackson, who could never brook 
opposition. The latter showed his hand more 
plainly in his second message and was assisted by 
Senator Benton of Missouri, perhaps the strongest 
Administration leader in Congress. K"othing could 
be done with that body, but at least public suspicion 
was aroused against the Bank. ^Most of the charges 
made were disproved, but that could not prevent the 
starting of new ones, especially by the men who re- 
mained in the background as a " Kitchen Cabinet." 
It is doubtful whether even the rash Jackson, 
after he had determined on trying for a second presi- 
dential term, wished to push the Bank fight to an 
issue before he was certain of re-election. As we 
have just seen he was politic, and McLane, the new 
Secretary of the Treasury, was apparently not for- 
bidden to say a good word for the institution in his 
first report. But Clay had returned to the Senate 
and was eager for an issue on which to corner the 
Administration, He thought he liad found it in the 
* Jefferson had them also. 



104 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Bank controversy, and with mistaken zeal lie urged 
Biddle and his associates to apply at once for a re- 
charter, although the current charter was good until 
l.'^SG. Like most similar ''clever" moves in poli- 
tics it failed of its mark. Congress did indeed pass 
a rechartering bill in the summer of 1832 ; but Jack- 
son did not hesitate to accept the issue Clay had 
made. He vetoed the bill with emphasis in a mes- 
sage which still deserves to be read. He made a 
strong argument as to the unconstitutionality of the 
special charter under discussion, brouglit out very 
adroitly the political and financial dangers attend- 
ing the grant of such monopolistic privileges, laid 
stress on the amount of stock owned abroad, and 
linally in a rerj dignified way stated his perfect 
willingness to go before the people in the coming 
election on the issue his opponents had chosen. 
Tliere were, indeed, statements in the message to 
M-hicli just exception could be taken, and Clay and 
Webster made the most of them; but the veto could 
not be overridden and there was nothing left but to 
light the matter out at the poll^. 

As we liave already seen Jackson triumphed sia;- 
iially. The campaign (1832) was a bitter one, 
especially as the Bank issue served to array the rich 
and well-to-do against people of small and no means, 
and is memorable for two reasons. In the first place 
it was ushered in by National Conventions, tlic 
era of Congressional caucuses and legislative nomi- 
nations being over. In the second place it was 
marked by the rise of one of those side parties based 
upon a moral issue that have since played such nn 
important part in American politics. With regard 
to the first fact it may be noted that conventions 
had previously been used in various States, and that 



FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 165 

the Democrats needed sueli a gathering for this 
campaign only to secure a Vice-Presidential candi- 
date. Van Buren gained the honour, not only be- 
cause he was Jackson's favourite, but also because 
of the sympathy aroused for him when it became 
known that a combination of Webster, Clay, and Cal- 
houn had prevented his confirmation as minister 
and brought him home from England under humili- 
ating circumstances not at all deserved. With re- 
i>ard to the second fact we need onlv sav that a ne>v 
party of not a little strength and integrity had been 
formed for the purpose of making war on the 
Masonic order. A certain William Morgan of 
Western Xew York had published alleged revela- 
tions concerning the order, and it was claimed by 
his friends that he had been kidnapped by the 
Freemasons and drowned in the ISTiagara Kiver. 
That he was murdered seems doubtful, but there 
is no question that the public w^as greatly agitated 
and that a large number of men forgot for the 
moment their previous political affiliations in order 
to form a party which should prevent Free- 
masons from holding office. William Wirt was 
]iersuaded to accept a nomination for the presi- 
dency upon this rather absurd platform, but only 
Vermont gave him her electoral votes. Nevertheless 
anti-Masonry taught a lesson which opponents of 
slavery, drunkenness, and lesser evils have not been 
slow to follow. 

As soon as he was safely re-elected Jackson re- 
newed his war upon the Bank, for he had an almost 
superstitious belief that he was called upon to exe- 
cute whatever he tliought to be the people's will 
as expressed at the polls. Accordingly he balanced 
his pleasant announcement, in his fourth message, 



106 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

that Juviiig- liis Administration $58,000,000 had 
been applied to the reduction of the public debt, 
by the plain statement that the Secretary of tlie 
Treasury was trying to find out whether the 
Xational Bank was still a safe place to keep the 
government deposits, and by the recommendation 
that Congress should investigate *' the serious 
charges impeaching " the character of the institu- 
tion. Xeither the House nor the informed portion 
of the public seeming much alarmed, the President 
with characteristic obstinacy determined to act alone. 
He rearranged his Cabinet so as to get McLan.e, 
a V>imk man, into the State Department, and Wil- 
liam -T. Duane, an anti-Bank man, into the Treasury. 
The law left the withdrawing of the deposits to the 
discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury, but 
when Jackson requested Duane to sign the requisite 
order, the latter refused, rightly fearing a serious 
disturbance of the money market. Such a consid- 
eration was, of course, lost on Jackson, whose pre- 
vious stand in th.e whole controversy had been dis- 
tinctly ci^ditable to his political sagacity, but whose 
mind was by no means of an economic cast. 

That mind was nuule up, however, and despite 
all warnings he informed his Cabinet that the de- 
posits must be removed. Duane still refusing to 
give the necessary order, he was dismissed and Koger 
B. Taney, the Attorney-General, who was in favour 
of the President's policy, Avas placed at the head of 
the Treasury. An order was issued withdrawing 
little less than $10,000,000, in gradual sums, to 
meet the government's expenses. Certain State 
banks wer*^ also designated as future de]iositorie3. 
The result was, of course, a curtailing of the Bank's 
loaus^ a slight run on its private deposits, and a 



FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 167 

stringency in tlie money market ; bnt the jndieioiis 
management of the institntion and the general 
financial prosperity of the country, together ^vith a 
slight halt in the goyernment's oppressiye policy, 
kept off a real panic. 

The order remoying the deposits had been issued 
late in September, 1833 ; in December Jackson de- 
fended his course in his message to Congress, laying 
stress on the fact that the Bank had undoubtedl}'' 
gone into politics in the late presidential campaign, 
and charging it with having done its best, since 
the ^vithdrawal of the deposits, to raise a panic in 
the country. There Avas probably truth in the first 
charge, but as there was no likelihood that a new 
charter could be secured, Jackson might well have 
allowed the institution to wind up its affairs peace- 
ably ; at least it is certain, after all allovi'ances have 
been made for the genuineness of his fears of a re- 
charter, that in his utterances to Congress* on the 
subject he showed himself to be more of a partisan 
than of a statesman. As the House was a new body 
with a Democratic majority, it was not difficult to 
secure approval for his action ; but Clay succeeded 
in getting the Senate to pass resolutions censuring 
the Executive for his removal of Duane, and Taney 
for his removal of the deposits. To this censure 
the indignant President replied in a long and on the 
whole dignified and powerful " Protest." TTIs 
theory of the constitutional independence of the 
three departments of government may liave been 
rather baldly put, but it contained in the last an- 
alysis a kernel of truth,* and his claim that the 
Senate had acted in an unconstitutional way was 

* For Jefferson's not flii^siinilar views see his Correspond- 
ence, especially the letter to Judge Roane, Sept. 6, 1819. 



IGS PKOGRESS OF THE U^'ITED STATES. 

ably, if not conviuciugly sot forth. It is. of course, 
easy to denounce Jackson as an autocrat, to show 
that his actions with regard to the Bank ^vere pre- 
cipitate and linally productive of evil consequences 
of a temporary sort, and to prove that if such high- 
handedness in an executive were long continued 
the liberties of the country -would suffer. But, on 
the other hand, it seems only fair to maintain that 
Jackson's political instincts with regard to the pos- 
sible evil influences that might be exerted bv the 
Bank Avere sound, that his motives -were truly pa- 
triotic although partly determined by his prejudices 
and his irascibility, that his conception of the duties 
of his station ^vas high, thou2;h at times mistaken, 
and linally, that when he is measured against his 
opponents in character in its widest sense the ad- 
vantage seems to be with him. The last conclu- 
sion Ava^ naturally not that of the Senate, which 
after a fierce debate declined to receive the Presi- 
dent's *' Protest." ^^llereupon Senator Benton gave 
notice that he would later move to expunge tlie reso- 
lution of censure from the record — a feat which Avas 
accomplished under rather ridiculous circumstances 
in January, 1S3T. Before this time the Bank had 
accepted the situation, obtained a Peiinsylvania 
charter, and prepared to imitate its conqueror by 
withdrawing to the shades of private life. Jack- 
sou stood a victor, but his clinging to his policy 
reminds one strikingly of the disastrous way in 
which Jefferson clung to his Embargo. Both had 
high motives; both withstood complaints and peti- 
tions of all sorts, though Jefferson grew sad while 
Jackson grew angry; both lived to see their hobbies 
hurt the country and, in particular, recoil upon the 
heads of their successors. Yet there is one striking 



FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 169 

difference between the two eases. Jefferson erred 
by trusting too much to his theories, Jackson by giv- 
ing way to his prejudices; our sympathies should 
therefore be given more unreservedly to the former 
than to the latter. 

It was not long before the effects of the Presi- 
dent's rashness began to be felt. The development 
of railways and other enterprises, the rapidity with 
which the country Avas being settled, the growth of 
a national spirit, and the influence of the seething 
fervour of the times throughout the rest of the world, 
had induced an era of speculation in America which 
the attack on the Bank could not arrest. To add 
fuel to the flames, the payment of the public debt 
(1835) led to the speedy passage of a law distribut- 
ing to the respective States as a non-interest-bearing 
loan the large surplus left after all the government's 
expenses had been paid. Then again the selection 
of Avhat were known as " pet banks " as depositories 
of the public funds gave an impetus to the whole- 
sale chartering of banks of issue the notes of which 
flooded the country. With the public treasury and 
the printing press to draw on for money and with 
a huge territory able to swallow any number of 
canals, railroads, and enterprises of all sorts, with 
a raw, untrained population in the newer States and 
with a dearth of sound statesmen, it is no wonder 
that speculation and inflation ruled the hour.* 

Such, a result had not been one of Jackson's pur- 
poses, lie had a conservative farmer's dislike for 
people who try to grow rich too quickly, and he had 

* It was also a period of great mob violence. On January 
30. 1835, a half-crazed honse-painter named Lawrence, who 
was out of work, snapped two pistols at Jackson as the latter 
was walking in a funeral procession. 



170 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

an honest man's preference for sound money. Five 
Imndred kinds of paper currency doubtless seemed 
the chaos to him that they suggest to us, and as early 
as 1834 he tried to mend matters by increasing con- 
siderably the coinage of the mints, especially in 
gold. Certain restrictions wore also secured on the 
State banks of issue, but to little purpose. Then in 
July, 1836, Jackson issued what is known as his 
'' Specie Circular," which declared that thereafter 
the Treasury would accept nothing but specie in 
payment for public lands. Speculation had run 
rife in these for two years past, which is not sur- 
prising since even a statesman like Clay had proposed 
and carried a scheme, wisely thwarted by Jackson, 
for distributing among the States the proceeds of the 
sales made of the nation's magnificent territory. But 
Jackson's blow, although probably well aimed, fell 
too late. The notes which would, otherwise, have 
been employed in purchasing lands were presented 
for redemption and confusion was confounded. 
Prices went up, there w^ere bread riots in Xew York, 
banks suspended right and left. Congress en- 
deavoured to have the circular rescinded, but the 
grim old President, as his last official action, let the 
rescinding bill die without his signature.* lie and 
the masses still believed that the greedy capitalist 
Avas behind the whole crisis, but a worse monster, 
Popular Ignorance, hnd at least a hand in it. 

Financial distress doubtless seemed to Jackson's 
contemporaries the characteristic feature of the close 
of his Administration; but a country's finances often 
mend quickly, and another feature of the period 
has more permanently held the regard of posterity. 

* This is known as a "pocket veto." See Appendix A., 
article 1, section 7, close of second paragraph. 



FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 171 

It was during Jackson's regime that the movement 
for abolition fairly began to make its power felt. 
It was also at this time that the corresponding move- 
ment on the part of the South for an extension of 
slave territory, especially in the direction of Texas, 
began to alarm the ISTorth. The latter movement 
will be more conveniently discussed later ; the former 
demands present attention. 

There can be little doubt that most of the people 
of the United States, Iv'orth as well as South, for 
many years after the Missouri Compromise deluded 
tliemselves with the belief that slavery had been taken 
out of politics. Anti-slavery agitation practically 
ceased because it seemed to smack of disloyalty to a 
Union avowedly based on a compromise. Besides, an 
age bent on making money does not care to be remind- 
ed that it has a conscience. Even in the South it 
was the tariff that was the ostensible cause of discon- 
tent, and few men cared or were able to look so far 
ahead as Calhoun was evidently doing. But some 
indignities offered to a young man who was helping 
to edit an emancipation journal at Baltimore, 
changed him into a fervid apostle of unconditional 
abolition and fanned the smouldering embers of a 
fire that was never to die down until it had done 
its deadly but purifying work. That young man 
was William Lloyd Garrison, who established the 
Liberator in Boston in 1831. He made converts, 
gained financial support, founded societies, and 
turned a mere reform into a crusade. He and his 
followers were, of course, denounced at first in every 
section, then mobbed, and in the person of Lovejoy 
m.ade martyrs,* for they disturbed the country and 

* Elijah P. Lovejov. an abolitionist editor, was murdered 
by a mob in Alton, Illinois, November, 1837. 



172 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

actually assailed the Union and the blessed Consti- 
tution itself. They believed that slavery was a 
crime, they went further and declared that slave- 
holders were criminals; it was not a long stride to 
the position that political association with criminals 
was criminal in itself. This seemed monstrous to 
most people in the thirties and it seems monstrous 
to nniny people now ; but the monstrosities of fanati 
cism are the most effective solvents used by Provi- 
dence. Whatever may be thought of the Abolition- 
ists, of their political tenets, of their incendiary 
methods, they are at least entitled to a high place 
among the world's genuine crusaders. 

Their first serious appearance on the national 
stage was made in 1S35 in a rather absurd way. 
They tilled the nuiil bags with literature intended 
to arouse the slave to a sense of his dignity as a man 
and the master to a sense of his shame as a tyrant. 
Unfortunately for them such incendiary matter 
might stir up a slave insurrection like that of Xat 
Turner in Virginia in 1S31 — an effect which eveii 
fanatics could hardly justify — and could only exas- 
perate Southern planters, who were as a rule easy- 
going rather than tyrannical. Besides the immediate 
result might easily have been foreseen. The ob- 
noxious documents were taken from the post-bags, 
eft'orts were made in Congress to have them legally 
excluded from the mails, absurd demands were put 
forward for the surrender of Northern abolitionists 
to Southern magistrates, and Andrew Jackson rose 
in his wrath once more. Doubtless such wrath 
was what the abolitionists were working for, but it 
is questionable Avhether the ludicrous elements of the 
affair would not very soon have hurt their cause 
had not the Southerners, led by Calhoun, stepped 



FKO.M riMUAIlMl TO Dl-'/FEAT. 1 7;>, 

beyond the lino.-^ of legifiiiKih' rcrioiitnient luid maclc 
demands which the North, however much it dis- 
liked the agitators, conhl not submit to without 
loss of self-respect. In other words the Abolition- 
ists were scarcely authorised to count <^n the false 
steps made by their foes. 

It is needless to describe the excitement produced 
in the Twenty- fourth C'ongress by the endeavour of 
the Southern men to follow Jackson's suggestion and 
pass a law excluding incendiary jmblications from 
the nniils. It was a ditlicnlt niattcM' to (hndde on, 
as even lh(^ astute Amos Kendall, who was then 
Postmaster-General, had found, and the extremes 
stand taken by (^iIIkmiu and his followei-s linally 
led to the failure of Tongress to legislate on the 
subject. But a new phase of the controversy 
speedily attracted attention. Petitions for the aboli- 
tion of slavery within the District of Columbia, 
which was under the control of Congress, were i>re- 
sented to that body, and the pro-slavery members 
undertook to insist that such petitions should be re- 
jected without discussion. As there was no question 
as to the fact that they would eventually be rejected, 
this " attack on the right of petition " would seem 
to be evidence of sheer madness on the part of leaders 
like Calhoun, did we not remember that stickling 
for their rights and more than their rights is an un- 
failing characteristic of minority ■|>arties.* 



* We cannot entor into a full discussion of tlie agitation of 
the slavery question in Confjji-ess at tliis ]ieriotl. Tlie six res- 
olutions d(>fininj;' tlie powers of the general government witli 
res|)ect to slavery, which Calhoun made the rehictant Senate 
discuss, and the withdrawal <if Southern Representatives from 
the House when they failed to ke(^p Slade of Vermont from 
attacking their institution (Dec, \^'M). deserve, however, to 
be specially noticed. See Benton, II., chaps. 33 and 86. 



174 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The controversy thus started raged I'or several 
rears, miieh valiiabk^ time being wasted by Congress, 
and the gain being entirely on the side of the Aboli- 
tionists. Tn the spring of 1836 the House passed 
a '* gag rule " which laid slavery petitions on the 
table for once and all, and also declared that Con- 
gress had no power to interfere with the institu- 
tion in a State and ought not to interfere with it 
in the District. These declarations had been re- 
ported by a committee to whom the slavery memorials 
had been referred. Even for securing tlie appoint- 
ment of this committee, Henry L. Pinckney, the 
member from Charleston, S.C., was outrageously 
censured in his native State and failed of re-elec- 
tion. Pinckney was no friend of agitation, but the 
South, especially South Carolina, was beginning to 
require a partisan pro-slavery zeal at least equal to 
the zeal of Garrison and his fellow fanatics. Any- 
thing less than violence in the expression of his 
detestation of abolitionism was held to smack of trea- 
son in any Southerner, as was roundly declared 
of Pinckney throughout South Carolina. Thus the 
charge often laid at the door of the Abolitionists 
that they brought on the Civil War is by no nutans 
an unjust one, for they certainly stirivd the South 
to acts of aggression that would never have been 
dreamed of otherwise. Yet it is, of course, fair to 
ask whetlier slavery would ever b.nve been got rid 
of save through war. 

But what was Pinckney's extremity was another 
man's opportunity. John Quincy Adams had been 
for years representing ^rassachusetts in the House, 
setting an examjde of active devotion to public af- 
fairs such as can be credited to no other ex-Presi- 
dent before or since. He was a caustic debater, 



FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFF.CT. 175 

but bis iiulopendcncc and bis illustrious career se- 
cured bini tbe respect of tbe House. The year be- 
fore, be bad astonished people by a vigorous defence 
of Jackson's equally vigorous demands upon France 
for a speedy settlement of the Spoliation Claims ; * 
now be was to astonish them still more by his cham- 
pionship of tbe right of petition. For years he was 
a thorn in tbe side of Southern Congressmen, who 
would have liked to resort to personal violence, but 
for respect for his grey hairs, bis fame, his honesty, 
and his brilliant dialectical powers. Indeed it is 
liard to see how any one who admires courage, 
whatever may be his sentiments in the matter of 
the great controversy between ^orth and South, 
can fail to admit that, with the possible exception 
of Jackson, the sturdy ex-President battling for the 
right of petition is the most commanding figure in 
American polities between Washington and Lincoln. 
Jefferson and perhai)s others are greater, but there 
is a moral grandeur about Adams that is all his own. 
From these forensic contests, prophetic of actual 
battles yet to come, we must now turn to consider 
for a moment the presidential campaign of 1.S30. 
In the elections of 1834 tbe opponents of Jackson 
bad taken the ])opular name of Whigs which was 
rominiseential of the patriotic party in tbe era of 
the Revolution. To this new party flocked tbe old 
National Republicans, nnmy of the Anti-lMasons, 
iuid Southerners whom Jackson had offended. It 

* Space is wanting for a diseussion of what might have been 
a very serious matter. It is worth noting, however, tliat 
rather factious opposition to Jackson in the Senate caused 
French Deputies to tliinlc that the United States couUl be in- 
sulted with impunity, while Jackson's ujidiplomatic language 
caused warranted excitement in Fraucv. Democracy came 
near discrediting itself, but fortunately did not. 



170 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

was a somewhat chaotic organisation with rather 
flexible principles, which perhaps accounts for it-3 
failure to cope with great success with the better led 
Democrats, whose principles were on the whole 
simpler and more attractive to the masses. The 
Whigs, however, might be generally counted as 
favouring a strong government, internal improve- 
ments, and a national bank, and if all other elements 
of union failed, they could fall back upon their 
dislike of Jacksonian autocracy, which indeed gave 
them their excuse for assuming their anti-monarch- 
ical name. In point of general intelligence and of 
eloquent leaders the party of Clay and Webster 
could undoubtedly boast its supremacy ; but Jackson 
and the masses proved too strong for them in 183G. 
The Democrats met in convention at Baltimore in the 
spring of 1835, thus prematurely to register Jack- 
son's wishes with regard to the succession. Van Buren 
was nominated unanimously, Ilichard M. Johnson 
of Kentucky being put up for Vice-President. The 
Whigs reverted to the plan of allowing legislatures 
to nominate various " favourite sons." Clay to his 
chagrin was out of the race, General William Henry 
Harrison, the victor at Tippecanoe,* who had been 
in politics in a small way for many years, being the 
most prominent candidate. When the election 
finally came off Van Buren did not come up to Jack- 
son's standard, but led by a sufficient majority, re- 
ceiving 170 votes to Harrison's 73. Four States had 
thrown away their votes on impossible candidates, 
and this was done to such an extent with regard to 
the Vice-Presidency that Johnson failed by one vote 
to get the needed majority. He was subsequently 
elected by the Senate, however; this being the first 

* See ante, Part I., Cliap. IV., p. 64, 



FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 177 

and only time that body has been called upon to 
perform such a function.* 

Jackson might now fairly sing his nunc dimittis 
and retire to his home, the " Hermitage," near Nash- 
ville, to prepare for the speedy death which his 
feeble health prognosticated. As a matter of fact 
he lived until 1845 and was by no means guilty of 
keeping his fingers out of politics. But he was 
doubtless honest in believing that he would soon 
leave the people without a leader unless he bound 
Van Euren by every possible pledge to administer 
the government on true Jaeksonian principles. The 
latter, more from gratitude and from knowledge of 
the then existing state of public opinion than from 
any lack of statesmanly intelligence, seems to have 
given the requisite pledges, Avhich Jackson re-en- 
forced in a rather indelicate way, not only by leav- 
ing Van Buren a Cabinet, f but also by making on 
the eve of retirement some important appointments 
— among them two justices of the Supreme Court. 
Such an action smacked of John Adams rather than 
of Thomas Jefferson. 

Yet it was not long before Jackson was doomed to 
see his party defeated, mainly on account of a finan- 
cial crisis he had done much to bring on, and if he 
had had a thoroughly clear eye he might have ob- 
served many features of his regime that should have 
made his " Farewell Address " a gloomier document 
than it was. Clear vision would have shown him 
that abolitionism was a spectre that would not down, 
that the intrigues with Texas which he started would 



* See Appendix A., Amendments, article 12. 

f Joel R. Poinsett of South Carolina. Secretary of War, was 
Van Buren's only appointment at first, but he soon had an 
opportunity of choosing a new Attorney-General. 
12 



178 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

lead to a war that would bo a precursor of the seces- 
sion he abhorred. It would also have shown him that 
he had blindly appointed rascals to office and had im- 
posed upon his country a vicious system in this 
regard that would corrupt politics for more than two 
generations. It would further have taught him that 
in a commercial democracy, not guided by wise 
leaders, speculation will periodically run riot; that 
plutocracy is an insidious foe not to be killed by 
cut-and-thrust methods; that government bounty, 
whether in the shape of protective tariffs or of lar- 
gesses to States or individuals, is a sure parent of 
corruption; that llually, while election riots, anti- 
abolitionist and anti-lvoman Catholic mobs, brutal 
disregard of human life, manifested in duels, in 
brawls, and in failure to safeguard the new modes 
of locomotion, — in a word bad manners and morals 
of both a public and a private kind, — ^miglit be set 
down as transitory characteristics of a young and 
vigorous people, no such toleration of them as lie 
and statesmen of his kind ]n'actised and would con- 
tinue to practise could fail to vitiate the vital cur- 
rents of the body politic for many a generation. But 
after all Jackson was Jackson, and a great man who 
perhaps saw more clearly in many matters than 
either Clay or Webster or Calhoun did — not one 
of whom is really worthy of the name of prophet, 
although all had a partial gift of divination that has 
been denied to most of their successors. 

Martin Van Buren was in his iifty-fifth year 
when he assumed the office for wdiich Jackson had 
long since selected him. lie was the first thorough- 
going politician of a typically American type to at- 
tain a position which, as the proverb has it, any 
American can hope to reach, but whicli has caused 



FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 179 

SO many heartaches to defeated aspirants. Yet in 
him the Presidency did not entirely bid farewell 
to statesmanship. He was a consummate product 
of T^ew York politics and was therefore a master 
of '' wire-pulling " ; he was also thoroughly capable 
of smothering his own opinions and of accepting 
those of the dominant majority; he knew how to 
attach himself to a great man and thus rise slowly 
to power; but besides these characteristics of the 
mere politician he had at least two characteristics 
of a statesman. He had a fairly wide reaching and 
trained intelligence and he was capable of taking a 
firm and dignified stand when it became absolutely 
necessary. It has been his fate therefore to seem a 
greater man to posterity than he aj)peared to con- 
temporaries, who naturally regarded him as a mere 
creature of Jackson's. A creature of Jackson's he 
was, or he would never have reached the White 
House; but he suffered from his thraldom, and when 
it became possible for him to act with independence 
he showed the real power that was in him. 

Perhaps no other President, save Lincoln and 
Johnson, has entered ui^on office with as dismal an 
outlook as Van Buren. Heavy failures took place 
almost immediately in ]^ew Orleans and ISTew York, 
and soon a panic swept the entire country. Prices 
which had been enormously high on account of the 
inflation of paper currency dropped suddenly, and, 
to make matters worse, grain had to be imported on 
account of bad harvests. On May 10, 1837, all the 
ban.ks in T^Tew York City suspended specie payments, 
those of other leading cities followed snit, and in a 
short while every bank in the country, including 
Jackson's " pets," was in the same predicament. 
The government fared no better than private in- 



ISO PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

dividuals, for, owing to favouritism in placing the 
deposits, several millions of its funds went into the 
maw of speculation, and an instalment of the sur- 
plus was due to the several States, Government 
employees soon had to take bank notes for their wages 
and actually tried to remonstrate with the Presi- 
dent, who drew specie, on the very grounds of the 
White House. Other and more inllucntial people re- 
monstrated also, but Van Buren drew into his shell, 
and declared not only that the " Specie Circular " 
should still hold good, but that the same principle 
of specie payments should apply to the transactions 
of the Post Office as well. He was forced, however, 
to call an extra session of Congress in September. 

His message to this body was a long one and de- 
void both of rhetoric and of haziness. He stated the 
situation fairly and showed that in both America 
and Europe an overweening spirit of speculation 
was responsible for most of the evils from which 
the civilised world was now suiTering, Millions 
could not be sunk in unimproved Western lands 
or in hypothetical Eastern cities with impunity even 
by Americans living in the era of Andrew Jackson. 
Put what was to be done? Another ^Rational Bank 
was out of the question, and, in the light of recent 
experiences. State banks were unsafe depositories 
and their notes a poor currency for the government 
to accept. The President was therefore inclined to 
suggest that the government do all its business on a 
'' hard money " or specie basis — already a cardinal 
doctrine with a body of Democrats known as " Loco- 
focos " * — and that arrangements be made to enable 

* So callod because at a meeting in New York at wliic-h 
the lights were turned out by opponents, these independent 
i)emocrat9 lit candles with "loco-foco" matches and con- 
tinued their meeting. 



FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 181 

the Treasury to take euro of tlic precious metals 
thus collected. In other words he advocated an 
entire divorce of the government from the banks and 
the establishment instead of Avhat is known as the 
" independent treasury " or " sub-treasury system." 

Many objections — some of them pertinent — were 
at once raised against Van Buren's main suggestion, 
and in spite of the efforts of leaders like Senator 
Silas Wright of New York, nothing was done in the 
matter until 1840 when the desired system was 
established. Xew York, Boston, Charleston, St. 
Louis, and the ^Mints at Philadelphia and New Or- 
leans were chosen to receive the neecv^sary vaults in 
which tlie specie, which after June 30, 1843, would 
be required by the United States in all payments, 
was to be stored till needed for public disbursements. 
The Whigs on coming into power in 1841 repealed 
the system ; but the Democrats renewed it in 1846, 
and it has ever since served the country. 

But debates on the sub-treasury would not tide 
the government over its diihculties or help the coun- 
try to get rid of the effects of the panic. Little or 
nothing in fact Avas done by Congress in the latter 
premises, but, as ha.^ often happened, the States were 
left to emerge from their difficulties as best they 
could. They illustrated the vitality of the country* 
by grappling with tlie bank evil, first in New York, 
then in other States, by means of laws which made 
special charters, usually gained through favourit- 
ism, unnecessary and allowed the formation of bank- 
ing companies with ])erfect fi-eedom, provided cer- 
tain requirements were complied with. Deposit of 

* Tlie jjolitical vitality of the States has contiibuted much 
to the stability of the Union and is a fact never to be lost 
sight of. 



182 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

securities to cover the amount of circulating notes 
naturally rendered such currency quite safe. ^lean- 
while Congress authorised an issue of interest-hear- 
ing treasury notes and postponed for fifteen months 
the pajnnent of the fourth instalment of the surplus 
for which the States were clamouring.* It was, of 
course, an unpopular measure, hut it had to he take'i, 
and, as events turned out, a deficit took the place of 
the expected surplus, and the States were left la- 
menting. Altogether, if the history of the times 
teaches anything it teaches that government bounty 
is dangerous both to giver and to recipient, and that 
good financial legislation can be expected neither 
from the people nor from their representatives acting 
as politicians — nor from an untrained executive, 
but only from disinterested students and experts. 
Yet this lesson of history, which he who runs may 
read, has still to be learned by a very considerable 
portion of the American people. 

Van Buren's firm stand against the banks natural- 
ly made him enemies among an important class of 
financiers, and the general distress of the times was 
imputed to him and his party for unrighteousness 
by the large portion of the public that feels rather 
than reasons about such matters. The Whigs there- 
fore picked up courage and began an assault all 
along the line. Clay and Webster united to oppose 
the sub-treasury scheme and Congress abandoned 
the hard-money principles of the '' Specie Circu- 
lar." During 1838 the banks wrangled among 
themselves as to when they should resume specie 
payments, but before the end of the year, owing 

* There was some desire at this time that Congress should 
assume the debts the States had so imprudently incurred, a 
desire fostered by luckless British investors. 



FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 183 

chiefly to the stand taken by the j^ew York institu- 
tions, the better banks of North and East were on 
their feet once more, the old National Bank, over 
which so many contests had been waged, sinking, 
however, lower and lower in the mire of corruption. 
Tn the fall elections the Whigs were on the wliole 
encouraged and naturally so, for it was a period of 
agitations of all sorts, each of which told against 
the party in power. Even Jackson's fulminations 
from the " Plermitage " failed to encourage his 
friends and daunt his foes. In Congress anti-slavery 
and pro-slavery men continued their wrangles. Out- 
side this amiable body there were disputes with Can- 
ada as to the North-Eastern border, which were so 
intensified by the rebellion in Upper Canada in 
1838 that Van Buren had to exercise all his patience 
and tact in order to preserve neutrality. There 
were also actual conflicts with the Seminoles of 
Florida, who were now led by their savage but able 
chieftain, Osceola. Fortunately, wise policy on the 
part of the British government, and especially of 
Lord Durham, prevented serious complications with 
Canada. The Administration was not, however, so 
lucky with its Indian war — which was indeed an- 
other item in its harassing legacy from Jackson. 
Hostilities were not concluded until 1842, by which 
time the war had lasted eight years, had exhausted 
and baffled the best generals of the army, including 
Winfield Scott, the hero of Lundy's Lane,* and had 
cost the country about $20,000,o6o.t For this state 

* It was finally put down mainly by allotting lands to set- 
tlers who were willing to take rifles along with their ploughs. 
See Tyler's special message of May 10, 1842. 

t Although tlie policy of tlie United States toward the 
Indians has been in many waj's mistaken from the beginning, 
it is quite possible to go too far in condemnation of it. The 



184 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of affairs the pacific President was obviously not re- 
sponsible; but the voters felt that some one was to 
blame, and he was the most conspicuous person on 
whom to wreak vengeance. 

iSTor was Van Buren to blame for the disgraceful 
strife precipitated in the House of Representatives 
when the Twenty-sixth Congress met in December, 
1839. The Clerk had to call the House to order for 
the purposes of organisation, but he would not call 
the names of five Whigs from !N'ew Jersey, whose 
seats were contested. As their votes were essential 
in the determination of a majority, a stormy de- 
bate arose and for three days no organisation was 
effected; on the fourth the common sense of John 
Quincy Adams prevailed over the warring elements 
and the House at last got down to work. With such 
an inauspicious beginning it is no wonder that this 
Congress, although it finally passed the sub-treasur\' 
bill, should have distinguished itself as the Seven- 
teenth had done by making all sorts of needless in- 
vestigations in order to furnish base materials for 
speeches in the coming presidential campaign. Tlie 
personal expenses of the honest but not ascetic Presi- 
dent were laid bare, and he was represented as a 
Sybarite who enjoyed golden ease while the average 
citizen was struggling to keep the wolf of Hard 
Times from his door. Similar charges have been 
made against subsequent executives, but one feels 
that the lapse of sixty years has brought with it 
a decided improvement in American political man- 
ners. 

The campaign of 18-iO was again fought out be- 
tween Harrison and Van Buren, but the latter no 

attitude toward them of Jefferson, Calhoun. Adams, and even 
at times of Jackson, was liighly commendable. 



FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 185 

longer had an omnipotPnt Jackson to clear the foes 
from his path. Harrison had been nominated late 
in 1839, by a convention which but for careful manip- 
ulation would probably have chosen Clay. The 
ticket had been completed by the choice for Vice- 
President of John Tyler of Virginia, a Democrat 
who had opposed Jackson. No particular prin- 
ciples were avowed, Avhich in part accounts for the 
enthusiasm with which voters of all shades of belief 
flocked to Harrison's standard. One principle at 
least they all had — opposition to the party that had 
presumably got the country into such confusion — 
and that was enough. Harrison did, after some 
taunting, proclaim his belief in banks and his opposi- 
tion to the spoils system, but desire for a change and 
a contagious enthusiasm spontaneously generated by 
the seething epoch did more to elect him than any- 
thing said or done by him or by his chief supporters. 
The enthusiasm of the campaign has seemingly never 
been equalled. " Tippecanoe and Tyler too " as a 
party cry satisfied that liking for alliteration that 
has never died out among men of English stock and 
also recalled Harrison's military exploits of nearly a 
generation ago. Monster processions miles in length 
satisfied a new country's sense for the bigness, if not 
the fitness of things. A taunt to the effect that the 
Western candidate, Avho by the way had been borji 
in Virginia, would be really better off if he finished 
the few years Xature would allot him in a log cabiji 
with a barrel of cider to make merry on was, with 
that ready political tact for which Americans are 
conspicuous, converted into the most effective of 
campaign catches. Log cabins and cider barrels in 
miniature were seen everywhere. They were car- 
ried in processions, they were worn as medals; and 



186 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

as emblems of the eourago and energy with, which 
men and women had planted the wilderness and 
made America a mighty and prosperous land, they 
aroused a responsive thrill in almost every bosom. 
On the other hand the unheroic descendant of thrif hy 
Dutchmen, the obsequious servant of " King An- 
drew " the Sybarite of the Vv^hite House, who had 
been renominated unanimously, could arouse no en- 
thusiasm himself ; and the attempts of his party to 
vie with the Whigs in noisy demonstration might 
have recalled the famous verse of Campbell: 

" Till a feeble cheer the Dane to our cheering sent us back." 

The result was not long in doubt even in thoso 
days when there was not a set election day for the 
whole nation. As the news from the different States 
came in, it became more and more clear that Harri- 
son had won a sweeping victory. He had 234 elec- 
toral votes to Van Buren's 60 and had captured States 
in every section. He carried New York and Penn- 
sylvania, which alone gave him 72 votes ; but he also 
carried Indiana and Georgia, ISTorth Carolina and 
Massachusetts, even Tennessee itself, Avhich Jackson 
had lost for Van Buren through his autocratic con- 
duct. On the other hand South Carolina and Vir- 
ginia made up over half of Van Buren's vote, for he 
was believed to have given pledges to slavery and the 
two leading Southern States felt constrained to stand 
by him. In other words, the final defeat of Jack- 
son in the person of his representative v\'as far more 
severe than that of Jefferson had been.* Van Buren 

* Yet Harrison led Van Buren by not quite 150,000 in the 
popular vote, and the increase in the votes of both parties was 
so great that many Democrats thought that fraud had been 
practised on a large scale at the polls. 



FROM TRIUMPH TO DEFEAT. 187 

took his reverses, for which he had not himself been 
responsible, most gracefully and entered upon a re- 
tirement which proved to be permanent. His party 
Avas to rally soon under a man who had been Speaker 
of the House during his Administration, but his own 
unwillingness to truckle further on the slavery ques- 
tion was to keep him more or less in the background, 
yet not by any means to damage him in the eyes of 
posterity. 



188 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE AXXEXATIOX OF TEXAS. 

"William Hexry Haekison lived exactly oue 
mouth after his inauguration ; it is therefore hard 
to say what sort of President he would have made. 
He was evidently uot brilliant, but as a territorial 
governor and as a geueral, he had had experience, 
and he at least showed that he would not let either 
Clay or Webster rule him. Of his short-lived 
Cabinet we need mention only Webster, who was 
made Secretary of State. As for the other offices, 
it soon became apparent that the '' Spoils system ■' 
had come to stay, for the pressure of office-seekers 
was tremendous and helped to hasten the President's 
death. A man of sixty-eight, Harrison simply could 
not stand the exposure of the long campaign of the 
year before and the care of starting a new Admin- 
istration off. He was taken with pneumonia and 
had no strength left with v/hich to resist. Thus the 
nation had to solemnise the first funeral of an Execu- 
tive cut down in the midst of his labours. 

If a democracy were capable of learning au^ihing 
from one or two experiences merely, the American 
people would long since have learned that the care- 
lessness generally displayed in making choice of a 
Vice-President is little short of culpable. Thus, in 
the present instance, slight reflection ought to have 
sii0"vvu the ^Vhigs that a washed over Democrat, ex- 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. ISO 

celleiit and acceptable though he might be in many 
respects, was not the rnnning mate that should have 
been selected for a man already verging on three- 
score and ten. But the American people were not 
very wise politically in 1840, and they are not very 
wise to-day. They believe in their luck, and be- 
cause most Vice-Presidents have simply to preside 
with dignity over a small deliberative body, they 
continue to imagine tluit an office which may ])e 
fraught with the utmost responsibility and impor- 
tance can be safely bestowed on a politician, often 
obscure, who represents a State or section with votes 
worth gaining. 

John Tyler, who was unwittingly about to give 
his countrymen a lesson they have refused to learn, 
reached Washington shortly after the President's 
death, and at once took the oath of office. He asked 
Harrison's Cabinet to continue in office, and an- 
nounced in an address to the people that he wouM 
pursue his predecessor's line of policy. lie doubt- 
less meant to, but hi^s political and sectional proclivi- 
ties were too much for him. Although just past 
fifty, he had had a long career in politics and had 
shown himself a thorough States-rights and pro- 
slavery man. He had opposed Jackson, but he had 
not allied himself with Clay. In fact, he seems to 
have been quite a t\*pical representative of the Vir- 
ginia of those days — he kept one eye upon the 
Founders of the Union, the other upon the Carolina 
extremists of whom Calhoun was the leader. Such 
a man was not likely to control any party at such 
a crisis, yet not thoroughly understanding the situa- 
tion and occupying, as he did, a sort of middle 
ground, having moreover patronage at his disposal 
and plenty of ambition, it is no wonder that he 



190 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

should have dreamed of reorganising the Whigs into 
a party of his own. 

Harrison had already called an extra session of 
Congress for the end of May in order to secure 
financial relief for the country, and in this action 
Tyler acquiesced. The Twenty-seventh Congress had 
a safe Whig majority in both branches and, pro- 
vided the new President worked with it, could prom- 
ise itself to carry out more of a programme than 
it had cared to avow at the polls ; but unfortunately 
the sweeping presidential election had involved too 
many close seats to give a sufficient Congressional 
majority to override the votes of a recalcitrant 
Executive. For this conjunction of circumstances, 
which proved very unfortunate since it threw the 
Whigs out and gave an impetus to pro-slavery 
schemes for obtaining Texas, thus widening the 
breach between Xorth and South, the American 
people were not responsible, but rather the fraraera 
of their constitutional system. 

The Whigs soon had reason to regret that their 
victory had not been more sweeping, and also that 
their legitimate leader, Clay, had been set aside for 
the sake of votes. Under the British system Clay 
would have been prime minister and would doubt- 
less have put through his elaborate programme of a 
national bank, an increased tariff, distribution to 
the respective States of the proceeds of public land 
sales, and one or two other measures. With a real 
Whig President like Harrison, he might have done 
it, but with half a Whig like Tyler he had little 
chance of succeeding, although he cracked his party 
whip hard enough. ISTor could he have succeeded, 
if he had had his majorities behind him in 
.1838, for then a Democratic President would have 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 101 

opposed hira. It is easy therefore to see that al- 
though the accident of John Tyler's being in the 
^^^lite House was the occasion of the Whig failure, 
the true cause of that failure is to be looked for in 
the Constitution itself. 

Clay's great measure M^as, of course, a National 
Bank, and as a preliminary step to its establishment 
he needed to clear away the sub-treasury system. 
Congress was willing to do this and so was the Presi- 
dent, who was glad to get rid of a system fathered 
by Van Buren, and of Jackson's '^ pet banks " as 
well. But Clay had already found Tyler obstinate 
on the subject of a l^ational Bank, and when later he 
yielded to some of the President's scruples, his con- 
ciliation proved to be useless, for Tyler vetoed a bill 
framed to please him. Tlie space at our command 
will not permit a thorough discussion of Tyler's 
views * on a subject far from simple in itself and 
rendered more complicated by the financial history 
of the country during the decade from 1830 to 
1840. It will therefore be well to abstain from abus- 
ing him as the Whigs did and as not a few historians 
have done. He was undou])tedly honest in his in- 
tentions and did not lack courage, but he seems to 
have had a hair-splitting mind, an extraordinary 
facility for persuading men that he would do one 
thing and then doing another, a supply of tears at 
command when it was necessary to summon up self- 
pity in order to give his conscience a reason for some 
questionable action, and finally a coterie of Vir- 
ginian advisers whose purpose was certainly not to 
advance the interests either of the Whig party or of 
the nation at large. That Tyler was a gentleman 

* His message of June 1st, 1841, ought to have shown how 
difficult it would be to devise a bank that would suit him. 



192 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and not an intentional traitor may be readily 
granted, but surely the Wliigs were excusable for 
reading him publicly out of their party, and if a 
historian were to maintain that no President has 
eA'er made a worse record in office, it would l>e hard 
to prove such a judgment unfair. 

Tyler's first bank veto astounded the Whigs on 
August 16, 1840. He had broken the promises 
made in his address to the people and had rendered 
nugatory all the conferences by means of which it 
had been sought to frame a bill that would plea^^e 
him. Still, not understanding the nature of his 
mind, which delighted in quibbles, the jiarty would 
not believe itself abandoned but again resorted to 
conferences, with the result that a bill for a '' Fiscal 
Corporation " with shorn privileges was brought in 
and voted for as a presidential measure. Again 
he interposed his veto, his real reasons being still 
hard to discover. Of course there could be no fur- 
ther dealings with such a man, whether his inten- 
tions were good or not, and instead of driving Clay 
to the wall as he had intended, he was proscribed 
himself, all his Cabinet resigning save Webster, who 
had important diplomatic negotiations to finish and 
who perhaps thought that his own presidential as- 
pirations would be more forwarded by his clinging 
to office even under Tyler than by his following 
Clay into opposition. He miscalculated, however, 
for it was quite apparent that the party was now pre- 
pared to stand by Clay through thick and thin, and 
that Tyler had lost the confidence of every one save a 
small clique of politicians headed by Henry A. Wise 
of Virginia. It was true that the Democrats ap- 
plauded his course with regard to the Bank, but they 
did not compromise themselves with him in spite of 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 193 

liis apparent use of pati'oiiage to that end. Thus it 
would have been better for him if Tyler had re- 
mained true to his own and the Whig theory recent- 
ly enunciated with regard to the impropriety of 
double presidential terms. 

The remainder of the Whig policy fared better 
than their bank schemes, but Clay's favourite plan 
of distributing to the States the proceeds of the sale 
of lands was eventually balked by the provision that 
such distribution should not take effect whenever the 
tariff was raised over twenty per cent. As the very 
7iext session of Congress passed a permanent tariff 
known as that of 1842, in which, both for revenue 
and for protection purposes, duties wei'e raised above 
this percentage, the States, which were then in most 
cases heavily in debt for extravagant internal im- 
provements and were in some instances threatening 
repudiation,* received not a penny of this promised 
largess and were on no better terms with the Whig 
party in consequence. It is interesting to note that 
this tariff bill was vetoed twice before it could gain 
Tyler's assent. An attempt had been in ado to 
saddle it with a provision that in spite of the raised 
duties the distribution to the States should still take 
place. Tyler resisted this misapplication of bounty, 
and as in the case of the bank vetoes was doubtless 
in the right so far as the ultimate good of the coun- 
try was concerned. Still one cannot help feeling 
that in those days it was better to err with Clay than 
to shine with Tyler. 

Yet this hybrid Administration managed to carry 

* Such threats and the general financial muddle hurt Amer- 
ican credit abroad to such an extent that in his second mes- 
sage Tyler Jiad to confess the lamentable failure of an agent 
lie had sent to Europe to effect a loan. 
13 



194 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

through an important piece of diplomacy. The long- 
standing dispute with Great Britain as to the North- 
Eastern boundary was settled, in spite of recent 
troubles on the border and complications concern- 
ing the coastAvise trade in slaves, by a treaty con- 
cluded at Washington, in the summer of 1842, be- 
tween Webster and Lord Ashburton.* The com- 
promise line drawn proved satisfactory, and Tyler 
himself seems to deserve credit for having tactfully 
helped on negotiations that possibly averted a most 
undesirable Avar.f He deserves credit also for a 
proposed exchequer bill, which Congress would not 
adopt; for a treaty with China, toward which the 
civilised world was now turning its eyes; and for 
careful management of the public funds, which for 
the nonce could not be kept according to the sub- 
treasury plan. He chose, too, a fairly strong Cabinet 
when the Whigs broke with him and was by no 
means lacking in spirit in his struggles with Con- 
gress ; but his virtues are generally imputed for 
vices to a man in a ffilse position. Meanwhile his 
enemy Clay retired from the Senate, delivering a 
dramatic speech of farewell which moved friends 

* Generally called by the lattor's name. 

f War between Great Britain and the United States must 
always seem undesirable, yet one can somewhat sympathise 
vvith the patriotic Benton in his disgust at the Ashburton 
Treaty. Apart from the question whether Webster defended 
just American boundary claims in a courageous manner, it 
«eemstliat the high-handed action of the Britisli with regard 
to the capture of the Caroline on the Niagara River and the 
subsequent trial of the Canadian McLeod, farcical though this 
ATas, might liave been handled more vigorously by the Amer- 
ican diplomatist. The freeing at Nassau of the revolted slaves 
of the brig Creole naturally does not so fire the American 
heart to-day, but that organ is still capable of being excited 
to indignation when the jaunty triumphs of Lord Palmerston 
are remembered. See Schouler's Histon/of the United States, 
IV. 397-398, and Benton, II., chaps. 75, 76,' and 101-106. 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 195 

and foes alike. Calhoun also retired, but neither 
had done his full political work yet. This was also 
true of John Quincy Adams, who kept up his agita- 
tion against the " gag-rule " and insisted on hand- 
ing in all sorts of petitions in defiance of threats and 
of a resolution of censure, which narrowly failed. 
Thus confusion reigned evervAvhere, but chiefly in 
the House, where members forgot themselves and 
engaged in tussles. 

The elections of 1S42 went badly against the 
Whigs, the Democratic majority in the House being 
over seventy. The slowly changed Senate remained 
Whig; thus there was a divided Congress with a 
new Mr. Facing-both-Ways in the executive chair. 
Xo work of real importance could be done, but con- 
ditions were ripe for work that should have been 
left undone. Webster was frozen out of the Cabinet 
and Abel P. Upshur of Virginia put in his place. 
Three of the Secretaries were Democrats, and for 
some time Tyler seemed determined to use his 
patronage so as to win the Democratic nomination. 
The stalwarts of that party would have none of him, 
however, and the latter half of his Administration 
was practically given up to carrying out a scheme 
which his bosom friends had been counselling from 
the first. This scheme was nothing less than the 
annexation of Texas to the Union — an affair which 
would have been grand in itself but for the fact that 
it involved the spread of slavery and was sure to bo 
resisted by the Korth and West, where abolitionist 
sentiments had been growing rapidly. 

It will be remembered that the United States had 
had a vague claim on Texas under the Louisiana 
Purchase of 1803, but that this had been given up 
by Monroe when the Treaty of 1819 was concluded 



196 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

with Spain. Monroe had acted in the interests of 
sectional harmony, but he could not control the 
course of events. Mexico broke away from Spain 
in 1821, and by 1827 Texas was a State in the Mexi- 
can Federation with a constitution providing- for the 
gradual abolition of slavery. But long ere this at- 
tempts had been made by Americans, especially from 
the South- West, to win the region for slavery, and 
enough adventurers had colonised it to make the 
anti-slavery provision of the constitution of the new 
State of " Coahuila and Texas " practically of no 
effect. The United States government naturally 
sympathised with these adventurous Americana, 
who despised the Mexicans and did not wish to live 
under their laws, and Secretaries Clay, Van Buren, 
and Forsyth all requested Mexico to cede the coveted 
State — requests which that young republic bravely 
but not prudently refused to consider. "Nor did the 
government at Washington confine its desires to 
Texas, but during Jackson's regime made a bid for 
a stretch of country reaching to the Pacific and in- 
cluding the harbour of San Francisco. When this 
proposal was refused, certain claims were pressed 
upon Mexico, and she was made to feel in more ways 
than one that justice is an incomprehensible word 
to an Anglo-Saxon the moment his heart is set upon 
his neighbour's land. Whether, indeed, Jackson sent 
his fellow Tennessean, Sam Houston, to Texas to 
start a revolution there, is a vexed question ; but it 
is at least certain that, when owing to the efforts of 
Houston and others the State renounced allegiance 
to Mexico, proclaimed her independence, framed a 
pro-slavery constitution and, avenging previous 
Mexican cruelties at the fortress of the Alamo, de- 
feated Santa Anna in the battle of San Jacinto 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 197 

(April 21, 1836), great rejoicing took place iu 
Washington and Congress voted that the revolted 
State should be recognised as soon as she should 
show herself able to maintain a competent civil 
government. But annexation was also broached, 
and Jackson not only bullied Mexico but sent a 
minister to Texas in indecent haste, basing his action 
on a clause tacked on to the civil appropriation bill 
and thus forcing the recognition of the republic. 

Under Jackson's successor the foes of slavery 
awoke to the full meaning of the programme of the 
Southern expansionists, and anti-annexation peti- 
tions "were poured upon Congress along with those 
praying for abolition in the District of Columbia. 
The new Texan minister proposed an immediate 
absorption of his lone republicj but no action was 
taken by Congress, for it was clear that both the 
ISTorth and Mexico would resist. Meanwhile Texas 
claimed that her territory extended not to the 
Xueces Eiver but to the Eio Grande, and any 
espousal of her claims meant war. It was true that 
Mexico was too much embarrassed vrith debt even 
to reduce Texas to submission and that Americans 
had great contempt for the courage of their rivals; 
but in the. main the pacific Van Buren preferred 
pressing the claims the United States had against 
Mexico — many of them fraudulent — and the latter 
country was glad enough to promise to negotiate. 

So matters stood until the close of Tyler's Admin- 
istration. He and his advisers, as pro-slavery men, 
naturally favoured annexation and most Texans 
wished it, but as long as Webster remained Secre- 
tary of State no important steps were taken, Mexico 
in spite of her poverty behaving well about the 
American claims, although there were filibustering 



1«JS PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

expeditions against her, and altliougli on one occasion 
an American C^ommodore actually took, without 
orders, the city of Monterey in California.'"^ It 
Avas becoming more and more evident that Mexico 
■would do well to imitate Spain's action with regard 
to Florida — to sell while she could ; but patriotic 
pride held her back, and perhaps sho feared that 
^vitllout resistance on her part her greedy neigh- 
bours would push far beyond even the Eio Grande. 
Every month now brought the crisis nearer. Tyler 
was more and more playing into Southern and Demo- 
cratic hands, and he and Upshur proposed annexa- 
tion to the Texan authorities by the autumn of 1S43. 
Meanwhile Great Britain had entered the game and, 
aided by European powers, had induced Mexico to 
consider seriously the propriety of consenting to the 
independence of Texas on the condition that incor- 
poration with the United States should be renounced. 
The Texans led by Houston balanced the two propo- 
sitions and decided in favour of the United States, 
after making proposals as to a war with ^Mexico and 
playing fast and loose with the commisjsioners of the 
latter country. 

An accident now turned the delicately balanced 
scales. The President and Cabinet sailed on the 
trial trip of the steam man-of-war Princeton, and 
witnessed the experiments made with a very large 
gun, christened with grim irony '" Peacemaker.'' 
The cannon exj)loded, killing several persons, among 
them Upshur and Gilmer of the Cabinet. Henry 
A. Wise, the eccentric but bold manager of the Presi- 
dent, at once took a step which few men would have 
attempted and fev/er still submitted to. He called 

* His name was Thomas ap Catesby Jones. The capture, 
whicli Tyler speedily disavowed, took place in October, 1842. 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 199 

on Senator McDuffic of South Carolina and sent 
an invitation through him to Calhoun to take U])- 
shur's place. He acted as though he had been com- 
missioned by the President, and McDuffie did not 
ask many questions. Then Wise proceeded to the 
^^^lite House, found Tyler in his usual flood of 
tears, and told him what he had done. The Presi- 
dent did not want Calhoun and said so, but Wise 
laid stress on the tangle that would be caused by 
Calhoun's acceptance of the invitation already sent 
and Tyler gave in. Comment upon this transac- 
tion is superfluous, but it may be well to remark 
first that American history shows clearly that the 
elective principle furnishes just as many freakish 
executives as the hereditary principle does, and sec- 
ondly, that in no Active drama did ever protagonist 
come upon the stage at the crisis more effectively 
than Calhoun, the champion of Southern expansion, 
did at this juncture (March, 1844). 

Annexation was now swiftly pressed forward. A 
treaty with Texas was signed early in April, Amer- 
ican troops were placed near the Texas border, and 
a squadron was sent to the Gulf of Mexico. Efforts 
were also made to induce Santa Anna, the Mexican 
President, to yield, but that obstinate warrior did 
not belie his reputation. British interference, 
especially with slavery in Texas, was given as the 
chief reason for the President's action, and Calhoun 
took the opportunity to deliver homilies on his 
favourite topic to Pakenham, the British minister. 
But when, after the matter had leaked out to tho 
press and been much discussed, Tyler sent in his 
treaty to the Senate, it was rejected decisively and 
tho use made of the army and navy was generally 
condemned. 



200 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

It was a bad year to start a new issue so far as 
the two party leaders, Van Buren and Clay, were 
concerned, for they naturally preferred to tight their 
battles on old lines ; but it was as shrewd a game as 
Tyler could play, although in the end he gained 
nothing by it. Before the gathering of their re- 
spective conventions both Vnn Buren and Clay pul> 
lished letters advising against immediate annexa- 
tion. Clay's did not aifect his nomination by ac- 
clamation in Baltimore on ]\[ay 1, the Whigs giving 
him his own platform, which left to one side the 
bank question as well as the more pressing matter 
of Texas. Van Buren's letter doubtless hurt him 
with the Democrats, who needed Southern support 
even more than the Whigs did. Other candidates 
bid for favour by advocating annexation, and finally 
the convention, which also met at Baltimore later 
in ]\[ay, chose James K. Polk of Tennessee on the 
ninth ballot. Van Buren would have been chosen 
but for the adoption of the rather absurd rule that 
a two-thirds majority of the delegates should be 
necessary for a choice — a rule which works in favour 
of the selection of mediocrities or " dark horses " 
such as Polk. This worthy had aspired only to 
Vice-Presidential honours, but he was a good party 
man and M-as pledged to annexation. The conven- 
tion pledged him also to agitate for the possession 
of the whole Oregon region, and adjourned, having 
done what M'as politically speaking a good piece of 
work. It had chosen a man who, although he had 
been Speaker of the House and prominent in the 
politics of his State, was not well enough known 
to have excited much animosity, and it had issued 
a platform calculated to win the votes of a people 
young enough to be delighted M'ith the idea of dio- 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 2ul 

tating ill one and the same breath both to powerful 
Great Britain and to weak Mexico. A statesman 
might well have sighed for a better ontcome from 
the deliberations of a great party, but politicians 
had little better to ask, and it was quite idle for 
Tyler to let his partisans go through the farce of 
nominating him, for he was soon obliged to with- 
draw in favour of Polk, who never showed himself 
grateful for the submission tendered. 

The campaign between Polk and Claj was close 
and exciting. The latter was far the more brilliant 
candidate, but unfortunately he wrote too many let- 
ters defining his position on the Texas controversy, 
and the new Liberty Party withdrew needed votes 
in New York. Polk on the other hand was guarded 
in his expressions and managed to keep protection- 
ist Pennsylvania in line, although he lost in his 
o^vn State. It seems, however, quite plain that if 
a few more Northern and Western anti-slavery men 
had kept their heads clear and i)erceived the absurd- 
ity of throwing their votes away merely because 
Clay was not so outspoken against annexation as 
they would have had him be, the magnetic states- 
man, who with all his faults was truly a great man 
and worthy of the honour he had so long sought, 
would have carried the day and perhaps saved the 
Union from one of the most disgraceful wars known 
to history. But it was not to be. The gallant Keii- 
tuckian went down before the uninspiring partisan 
from Tennessee, and the country was launched upon 
a reckless policy the penalties for which were paid 
a few years later in the greatest civil war of modern 
times. It is of course useless for the historian to 
sigh over lost causes, especially those that are lost 
at the polls in a democratic country, but the his- 



202 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

torian would have to be singularly perverted in judg- 
ment or singularly callous who would not express 
regret at the defeat of Henry Clay in the campaign 
of 184-i. 

In thus following the course of national affairs 
Ave have overlooked a local disturbance that almost 
threatened to assume the proportions of a civil war. 
Rhode Island with a conservatism remarkable even 
in New England had held on to its ancient charter 
and refused suffrage to all save landowners and their 
eldest sons. Inequality of representation in the leg- 
islature Avas one result, so that we are reminded of 
the condition of England before the Tveform Bill. 
In 1841 and 1812 two constitutions, the People's 
and the Landowners', both more liberal than the 
older one, but the latter bearing hard on naturalised 
citizens, were submitted to popular vote. The 
former was adopted, but fraud was alleged and the 
legislature forbade its going into effect. Its par- 
tisans, however, elected Thomas W. Dorr Governor 
and a contest arose between him and the Governor 
under the old charter, Samuel W. King. An appeal 
to arms was threatened and King called upon Presi- 
dent Tyler for aid, which that scrupulous statesman 
was spared the pain of rendering. Dorr's adherents 
deserted him ; lie was tried for treason, imjjrisoncd 
for life, and pardoned later. A new liberal consti- 
tution was then adopted and the little State was at 
peace. Peace also came to ISTew York, where the 
Van Rensselaer and other great " patroon " estates, 
after an anti-rent agitation, were sold at reduced 
rates to freehold purchasers. Both " revolutions " 
are noteworthy as illustrating the fact that in a 
vast country like America, whose citizens are ab- 
sorbed in great business or political concerns, grave 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 203 

abuses may continue to exist for years and even for 
centuries after they have been put down in less 
proiLj;ressive countries. 

The last session of the Twenty-eighth Congress 
made itself moi-e memorable than is usually the 
case when a new Administration is expected to make 
its entrance upon the political stage. It abolished 
the " gag-rule " against which Adams had struggled 
so long, it fixed the Tuesday after the first 
Monday in November as a general day for 
presidential elections, and it admitted Texas to 
the Union by a joint resolution. The latter 
step was called by the Democrats " reannexa- 
tion," which was a popular but, as we have 
seen, a sufficiently absurd term. The claim to Texas 
under the Louisiana Purchase had been slight, it 
had been waived by Monroe, and perhaps it did 
not extend to the Rio Grande, ISTor was there 
seemingly much more truth in the report that Great 
Britain would, in the face of the Monroe Doctrine, 
seize upon Texas unless the latter w^ere admitted to 
the Union at once. But Tyler and Calhoun argued 
in this way and, with the success of the annexation 
party at the polls to serve as a sanction. Congress 
prepared to undo its work of the session before. A 
suggestion had been thrown out at the time of the 
rejection of Tyler's treaty that a foreign State could 
be received into the Union only through an act of 
Congress. Tyler and Calhoun, though strict con- 
structionists, Avere too much in earnest over annexa- 
tion to stand to their former position that a treaty, 
which would require a two-thirds vote of the Senate, 
was the proper way to secure incorporation. The 
House was quite willing to pass a resolution enabling 
Texas to form a constitution as a preliminary to in- 



204 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

corporation, and, while the Senate haggled over this 
awhile, it got out of the dilemma by a subterfuge 
which allovv'cd the President to communicate to the 
Texan authorities a joint resolution for annexatioti. 
Texas was only too willing to come in, and thus 
Tyler went out with a show of triumph, while Polk 
entered to take charge of the war which was sure 
to follow. 

The most one can say for the wliole affair is that, 
while it is quite apparent that the United States 
must sooner or later have acquired Texas, the way 
in which it was done reflected no credit on any 
one concerned. A strict constructionist party, 
and especially ultra -stringent constructionists like 
Tyler and Calhoun, should not have seized upon 
the doubtful method of the joint resolution to ac- 
complish their ends, particularly upon a resolution 
trickily worded on purpose to let Tyler act speedily, 
Nor, beginning with Jackson, should American 
statesmen have bullied a smaller power which had 
done them no harm and was after all a sister re- 
public of the Union whose honour they had sworn 
to uphold. One may even leave the slavery question 
entirely to one side — for recent events have shown 
that one section is about as willing to grab land on 
general princij)les as another — and condemn the 
whole course of the country in the matter from the 
point of view of international equity. When, how- 
ever, it is remembered that pro-slavery advocates 
were practically responsible for every stage of the 
annexation business as well as for the war that fol- 
lowed, the only charitable judgment that can be 
passed upon leaders and people is that it was a sad 
case of the blind leading the blind. 



THE MEXICAN WAR. 205 



CHAPTEE XII. 

THE MEXICAN WAR. 

The Administration of James K. Polk, although 
not characterised by high statesmanship, was pre- 
eminently what Americans call " businesslike." 
Polk was above all else a party worker, and hia 
elevation to the presidency, at the age of fifty, merely 
meant that he would be overseer and labourer in 
one. Territorial aggrandisement was the main 
party work on hand ; but the restoration of the sub- 
treasury system and a reduction of the tariff were 
also parts of the programme. This entire policy 
was carried out, to the credit of Polk as an admin- 
istrator, if not as statesman and man. A good Cabi- 
net was chosen, with James Buchanan of Pennsyl- 
vania as Secretary of State, Robert J. Walker of 
Mississippi as Secretary of the Treasury, William 
L. Marcy of New York, famous for his phrase about 
the spoils, as Secretary of War, and George Ban- 
croft of Massachusetts, the distinguished historian, 
as Secretary of the Navy. On the President and 
these four men the burden of the prospective war or 
wars would chiefly rest.* 

Fortunately for Polk and for the United States 
there was only one war. The Democrats had been 

* Mr. Bancroft became minister to Great Britain in 1846, but 
not until he had founded the Nnval Academy at Annnpolis. 
His place in the Navy Department waa taken l)y John Y. Mason 
of Virginia. 



206 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, 

led to insist upon forcing Great Britain ont of Ore- 
gon in order to strengthen the hold of the party 
npon Xorth- Western men and opponents of slavery. 
The great free territory would balance the great 
slave territory to be taken in. That American claims 
to the whole of the Oregon region were by no means 
convincingly strong * and that a war with both 
Great Britain and Mexico would tax the country 
severely were facts to which the more headstrong 
voters gave little heed during and after the presi- 
dential campaign. " Fifty-four forty or fight " f 
was a party cry alliterative and warlike enough to 
suit all save quiet souls, and it was sufficiently terse 
and uncompromising to suit the Scotch-Irish Presi- 
dent when he sent in his message to Congress. Tyler 
and Calhoun had previously tried their hands fit 
settling the matter with the same unsuccess as at- 
tended the first efforts of Polk and Buchanan, and 
Pakenham, the British minister, was now awaiting 
with some impatience the upshot of Congressional 
deliberations. Fortunately moderate counsels pre- 
vailed, America's previously proposed comjiromise 
line at the forty-ninth parallel seeming quite a fair 
one. Details of the transaction are needless. Con- 
gress w^as sensible, Polk was not obstinate, the Brit- 
ish government behaved with dignity and prudence, 
and a treaty was ratified in the summer of 184fi 
which laid the long-standing dispute to rest. It 

* They seem to have been due to confusion with regard to 
the Russian line of 54° 40' and to the tendency of professional 
politicians to practise on popular ignorance. 

f 54° 40' was the northern limit of American claims. These 
claims had been steadily upheld, and in the main with wise 
foresight, by Benton, who was itidignant at the joint occupancy 
which satisfied opportunists, and also at the assumption of an 
unfair and untenable boundary line. 



THE MEXICAN WAR. 207 

would have been absurd for America to stand out 
for more, since she g'ot the Columbia River and 
rounded off her territory excellently — the Alaska 
Purchase not being then in sight. On the other hand 
Great Britain got Vancouver's Island and avoided 
the troubles that the fast increasing tide of Ameri- 
can emigrants into the disputed region would un- 
doubtedly have caused her.'"^ The treaty was credit- 
able to both governments, especially in view of their 
discordant relations a genei'ation before, and it is 
comforting to the modern historian as a proof of 
real political progress on the part of America — a 
proof sadly needed at this juncture. 

For in spite of the reduced tariff bill, whicli 
passed in July, 1840, and of the restoration of the 
sub-treasury system, which at last brought some 
order into the handling of the public funds; in spite 
of the unanimity with which Texas had accepted 
the joint resolution for annexation and of the prompt- 
ness with which what was destined to become an 
imperial State was annexed to a still more imperial 
Union now stretching from ocean to ocean, the 
United States was about to enter upon what is per- 
haps the most discreditable period of its history. 
In the events leading up to the War of 1812 the 
country of Washington had been bullied, which was 
bad enough ; in the events leading up to the Mexican 
War it played tlie part of the bully, v.diich was 
worse. It is, of course, legitimate to claim that 
the world has profited from the fact that the region 
between the Xueces and the Rio Grande, as well 

* The Hiulson's Bay Company was holding the northern part 
of the region ; the Americans began colonisation in earnest 
in 1843 under the leadership of the missionary, Dr. Marcus 
Whitman. 



208 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

as the far vaster domain now occupied by thriving 
States and Territories of which California is the 
crown, is being exploited bj Anglo-Saxons rather 
than by Mexicans. It is also permissible to argue 
that Anglo-Saxon occupation had to come at one 
time or another. But it is not permitted the lover 
of his kind to believe that the rights of nations can 
be hypocritically overriden with impunity or that 
the United States can be acquitted of the charge of 
having played the hypocrite and the bully toward 
a weak country whose only crime was its possessor- 
ship of land coveted by the American people. 

The action of Texas and the United States in 
drawing close to one another had naturally heated 
Mexican blood to the boiling point, and diplomatic 
relations had been broken off between the two Repub- 
lics. Polk wished to patch these up if he could and 
thus avoid war; he therefore late in 1845 despatched 
John Slidell as an envoy who was to endeavour 
to settle all quarrels and to purchase California, if 
it were possible. But a revolution had put the 
soldier Paredes in the place of the peaceful Presi- 
dent, Herrera, and Slidell made no headway. 
Meanwhile Polk had ordered General Zaehary Tay- 
lor to advance and take position on the Rio Grande 
and had sent a fleet to the Gulf. Such actions might 
indicate a desire to be in readiness for whatever 
might happen, but they also seemed to indicate a de- 
sire to provoke Mexico to a war which would force 
her to part with her territory.'" 

* We cannot do bettei* hei'e than to recall the words of 
Benton (II., p. 680) : — '• It is impossible to conceive of an Ad- 
ministration less warlike or more intriguing than that of Mr. 
Polk. They wore men of peace, with objects to be accom- 
plished by meiins of war, so that war was a necessity and an 
indispensability to their pui'pose ; but they wanted no more 



THE MEXICAN WAR. 209 

Taylor obeyed orders and posted his small force 
on the Rio Grande opposite Mata moras, just as he 
had in the summer of the preceding year obeyed 
orders and posted his still smaller force across the 
!N'ueces at Corpus Christi. His entrance on the dis- 
puted territory would have led to war with a stronger 
power; his blockading the Rio Grande and pointing 
his guns at a Mexican town was bound to lead to 
war even with Mexico unless that country had lost 
all pride, which was far from the case. As he re- 
fused to listen to protests, he was of course not sur- 
prised when a party of his men who were recon- 
noitring were attacked by a larger body of Mexi- 
cans whom General Arista had sent across the river 
(April 23, 1S4G). In about two weeks the battles 
of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma had been won 
over superior forces, and Taylor had captured Mata- 
moras in less than a Aveek after war had been 
actually declared. 

On receipt of ncAvs of the first encounter Polk 
sent his now historic message to Congress recount- 
ing the many sins of Mexico Avhicli had culminated 
in her shedding " American blood upon American 
soil." " War exists," he declared, " and notwith- 
standing all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the 
act of Mexico herself." As Polk was personally 

of it than wouM answer their purpopes. Tliey wanted a 
small wai', just large enough to require a treaty of pear>e, 
and not large enough to make military reputations, dan- 
gerous for the presidency." It must not be forgotten, how- 
ever, that Polk was honest — that he was narrow-minded 
must be olear to any one wlio reads the one-sided pleas lie 
sent in as messages to Congress. It should be remembered, 
too, that Mexico had increased her munitions and forces at 
Matamoras. In fact, as often happens in such cases, a strong 
technical defence can be made out for the Administration's 
actions. 

14 



210 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

an upright man it is only fair to suppose that to 
his heated mind the planting of United States troops 
at Corj^us Christi and in front of Matamoras ap- 
peared to be heroic efforts to keep the peace. Con- 
gress accepted the President's vieAvs and voted the 
necessary funds, while the people at large naturally 
thought more of the fate of Taylor's army than of 
the way in which hostilities had been begun. There 
was no difficulty in securing volunteers, especially 
from the South and West. These were soon to 
prove that although American politicians might be 
untrustworthy, American citizens make as trust- 
worthy soldiers as the world has ever seen. 

Operations were now pushed forward with a speed 
worthy of a better cause. Taylor marched toward 
the interior of Mexico ; Kearney took Santa Fe in 
jSTew Mexico and then started for California, where 
intrigues had been going on for some time. Monterey 
was taken again by an American fleet, this time 
lawfully, and San Francisco and other places yielded, 
the whole province succumbing without a blow. 
That Mexico might see the error of her ways and 
abandon all idea of resistance was meanwhile an 
idea of the government's, and to further it an ob- 
scure intrigue was entered into with the exiled chief- 
tain Santa Anna. The American fleet connived at his 
landing at Vera Cruz, and in a short time his parti- 
sans placed him once more in power; but he proved 
to be only an abler and more cruel foe than his pre- 
decessor had been. And as if to cap the climax 
of absurdity, Buchanan gave him an opportunity 
for refusing to open negotiations with the United 
States, l^egotiations with a reasoner like Polk 
would have been, indeed, curiously interesting. 
Even the fellow -citizens of the latter could not, in 



THE MEXICAN WAR. gH 

many eases, follow the workings of his mind, as any 
reader of the Biglow Papers will recall. Xew Eng- 
land in particular and anti-slavery men in general 
opposed the war as unjust and as waged in the in- 
terests of slavery, and the Whigs reaped the benefit 
of dissensions which according to Polk gave " aid 
and comfort to the enemy." Similar charges have 
been always, even very recently, preferred against 
critics of an Administration conducting a war ; but 
as such charges applied v/ith full force to Chatham, 
Fox, and Burke, one may perhaps be excused for 
aiding with Lowell ratlicr than with Polk. 

Polk, however, deserves sympathy for the curious 
apathy Congress displayed when he requested that 
the revenue should be increased in order to meet 
the necessarily augmented expenditures which were 
acquiesced in. As in the wars of 1S12 and 1861 
interest-bearing treasury notes seemed to be the only 
financial expedient satisfactory to the Congressional 
mind. Perhaps, as a partisan, he deserves sym- 
pathy, too, for the ungenerous way, as it seemed to 
him, his requests for money in order to conclude 
peace and obtain territory were answered. Mr, 
Jefferson ha^l asked for such confidential appropria- 
tions and had got them, but Polk found himself con- 
fronted with a " rider " to the effect that the terri- 
tory bought should be for ever delivered from slavery. 
This was the afterwards famous Wilmot Proviso — 
so called from its proposer, David Wilmot of Penn- 
sylvania. Polk and the Southerners had supposed 
that the Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30' would 
hold in the new Territories, but this proviso, al- 
though it was dropped for the nonce, showed them 
that they would not reap the reward of their in- 
trigues without a struggle. The premature admia- 



212 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

sion of Wisconsin as a State to balance Texa3,* 
Iowa having already balanced Florida (1845), ako 
showed that the anti-slavery men were wide awake. 
But more galling, perhaps, than their fears of the 
abolitionists were the fears cherished by Polk and 
his fellow Democrats of the political effects of the 
victories they could not help looking forward to. 
Taylor was a AVliig and so vras the Commanding- 
General, Winfield Scott, who had been kept from 
the field at the beginning of the war — in a 
way that reminds one strikingly of a similar oc- 
currence during the recent Santiago campaign — in 
order that his well-known presidential aspirations 
might not be furthered. But to the surprise of the 
politicians Taylor, whose nickname of " Kough and 
Ready " described him accurately, took hold of the 
popular imagination, and the Whig president- 
makers were obviously quite rea<ly to play upon the 
public passion for military executives. Something 
must be done, and a scheme was actually prepared 
by which Senator Benton, who had years before been 
a Colonel in the War of 1812, was to be made Lieu- 
tenant-General, a position seldom filled in a country 
jealous of the military prestige it nevertheless adores 
whenever it can. This scheme failing and Benton 
refusing to be content with the grade of Major-Gen- 
eral, there was nothing to do but to continue to play 
off Scott against Taylor, who had meanwhile taken 
the strongly fortified Mexican town of Monterey 
after some severe fighting. 

The employment of Scott dates from [N'ovembev, 

1846; by September 14, 1847, the City of Mexico 

had fallen and the war was practically at an end. 

Whatever may be thought of the M-ay in which it 

* Wisconsin was finally admitted in 1848, 



THE MEXICAN WAR. 213 

was begun or of the iiitrio'iics by wliicb the military 
leaders were hampered, it cannot be denied that this 
struggle with an inferior yet desperate people was 
prosecuted with remarkable bravery and skill and 
success. Scott, who was nicknamed " Fuss and 
Feathers " and was as distinguished for his strict- 
ness and love of display as Taylor was for the op- 
posite qualities, conducted his campaign from Vera 
Cruz to the capital city with fully as much skill as 
was displayed by his rival subordinate, wh.osc army 
he had considerably thinned by withdrawing troops ; 
but all his skill and all his victories failed to move 
the popular heart as Taylor's first successes had 
done. And when the latter on the plain of Buena 
Vista gallantly withstood with his 5,200 men Santa 
Anna's attack with over 12,000 (Feb. 22-23, 1847\ 
the expert in such matters could foresee that a Presi- 
dent had been made before Scott's fleet had reached 
Vera Cruz. Another President, although not of the 
United States, Avas at least partly made in the same 
gallant battle, and oddly enough it was Taylor's own 
son-in-law. Jefferson Davis distinguished himself 
both as a tactician and as a bold fighter on the field 
of Buena Vista. 

Scott's march over two hundred miles of difii- 
cult country began about the middle of April, 1847, 
Vera Cruz having surrendered about three weeks 
before. On April J 8, the Americans stormed the 
pass of Cerro Gordo, routing the Mexicans and 
making large captures of men and guns. Several 
towns were then taken, at one of which, Puebla, 
the troops were rested for two months. Having been 
reinforced they moved forward again at the begin- 
ning of August, and by the 18th had penetrated to 
within ten miles of the City of Mexico, where Santa 



214 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Anna was determined to make a desperate struggle. 
Scott Iiad about 11,000 men to oppose to nearly 
three times tlioiv number of Mexicans. He used them 
most etfectually in three battles fought on August 
19th and 20th. These victories of Contreras, San 
Antonio, and Churubuseo led to an armistice and 
negotiations, for Scott was under instructions not to 
grind the enemy to the dust. Polk's commissioner 
Trist pressed the President's policv of the cession 
of ]S'ew Mexico and California, for which America 
M-as willing to pay liberally. The Mexican com- 
missioners, however, made a counter proposition 
■which came so far short of the wishes of the con- 
querors that the truce had to be abandoned, Santa 
Anna, with his usual cunning, having meanwhile 
strengthened his defences. On September S, Gen- 
eral Worth won the battle of Molino del Pey (Mill 
of the King), and a few days later the fortified height 
of Chapultepec was taken by assault. On September 
1-i, the city was entered and the war was over. 

The mere mention of Scott's victories gives no 
idea of the brilliant success of his campaign. More 
daring and effective fighting has rarely been seen, 
and the skill of the commander-in-chief was fairly 
commensurate with the reliability of his subordi- 
nates and the valour of his soldiers. The nature of 
the country and the ferocity with which the Mexi- 
cans fought made every battle a difficult one, yet 
each obstacle seemed only to whet the eagerness of 
ofiicers and troops. So far as mere fighting is coji- 
cerned, this war amply wiped out the disgrace of 
1812. It was also a fitting prelude to the still fiercer 
fighting on a grander scale that was to characterise 
the Civil War, in which many a subordinate dis- 
tinguished in these Mexican battles was to achieve 



THE MEXICAN WAR. 215 

renown as a cominaiuler. Lee, Grant, MeClellan. 
" Stonewall " Jackson, Beauregard, and other lead- 
ers whose names will hereafter figure in this narra- 
tive got their first taste of actual fighting under Scott 
and Taylor. Of them all Lee seems most to have 
distinguished himself, Scott, with a prescience for 
which he deserves credit, actually declaring him 
to be the greatest military genius in America. 

The war was formally closed by the Treaty of 
Guadaloupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848. 
Santa Anna had been again deposed and the more 
moderate Peiia had the sense not to kick against the 
pricks. The United States secured the enlarged 
Texas, iN'ew Mexico, and Upper California, paying 
for the same $15,000,000 and assuming certain Am- 
erican claims against Mexico, which was to be no 
more molested as by bullying Presidents in the 
past. After slight changes the treaty, which Trist, 
who had been recalled, had technically no right to 
make, was ratified by the American Senate and by 
the Mexican Congress, and Polk could boast that 
the main feature of his policy had been carried out 
to the letter. Yet the war did not close without un- 
ideasant incidents, for Scott's temper got him into 
trouble with three of his subordinates and a rather 
discreditable court of inquiry was the result. 

Meanwhile political affairs at home had not satis- 
fied the party in power. Taylor had gained strength 
as a presidential candidate in embryo, and Clay 
had emerged from his retirement and criticised with 
much power the course of the Administration. The 
" Wilmot Proviso " became a very popular device 
with Northern and Western voters for salving their 
tender consciences and at the same time gratifying 
their innate desire to acquire territory. Territory 



216 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

will accnie, they argued, aud the result will be good 
if only we can check the spread of slavery. This was 
c. very natural course of reasoning, but it does not 
follow that tlie historian must praise the celebrated 
■ Proviso." It was the product of practical politics, 
aud probably represented the best solution of their 
difficulties that the friends of liberty could then 
think of. but it certainly had little to reconunend it 
from the point of view of that ideal standard of 
conduct which men and nations should keep ever be- 
fore them. It suggested the theory that ill-gotten 
goods should not be employed in one particularly 
disgraceful way. but might otherwise be kept with 
impimity. 

The Thirtieth Congress, in which Abraham Lin- 
coln emerged for a moment into light, was anti-ad- 
ministration by a small majority in the House. 
Xothing was done, however, that seriously hampered 
Polk, and the dramatic death of John Quincy 
Adams, who fell at his seat, and was removed to the 
Speaker's room to die. was the most remarkable event 
of the tirst session, although there was naturally not 
a little discussion about the free or slave status of the 
new possessions. This question was rendered still 
more complicated by the fact that, as Mexican soil, 
California and Xew Alexico were free from slavery, 
if therefore the priucijdes of the Missouri Com- 
]>romise were followed the United States would be in 
the unpleasant position of permitting what even 
Mexico had forbidden as immoral and unjust. A 
territorial government Avas, however, after much 
difficulty created for Oregon by a bill to which the 
Wilmot Proviso was attached (August, 1S4S\ 

While Congress was extending its sittings far into 
the summer, the countrv was uudoreoiug the aaonv 



THE MEXICAN WAR. 217 

of a presidential eainpaign. The Democrats had 
nominated Lewis Cass of Michigan, Polk not having 
aimed at a second term. The Western candidate 
was accused, with seeming justice, of going entirely 
too far in the direction marked out by the pro- 
slaverv party in the South; he was not therefore 
greatly respected by either section. His position 
was one destined to win for a while, but at a later 
season — for he believed that Congress ought not to 
legislate on the free or slave status of a Territory, 
but that the right to determine this lay with the 
people of the Territory. This doctrine of " popular 
sovereignty " was not, however, put forward by the 
Dem(X*ratic Convention, which took a negative stand 
on the whole matter, as did also their rivals, the 
Whigs, who repeated their trick of having no plat- 
form at all. The latter also followed their win- 
ning tactics of eight years before by setting aside 
Henry Clay, who was again in the race, and choos- 
ing as standard bearer a military man, whose rec- 
ord was, however, fresher and more distinguished 
than Harrison's had been. General Zachary Tay- 
lor, in spite of the fact that he owned slaves ou his 
Louisiana })lantation and thai the Whigs were in 
the main anti-slavery in their symitatliies, was nomi- 
nated for President on the fourth ballot, Winfield 
Scott and Webster going down in defeat with Clay. 
For Vice-President a thoroughly safe Whig wa3 
chosen, in view of the Tyler fiasco, in rho person of 
Millard Fillmore of ISTew York, an attractive man 
who had just shown strength in his State and who 
had been a good member of Congress. 

Such ardent anti-slavery men as differed from 
Garrison in believing political action wise and good, 
but did not care to vote for a sluveholdins: Whig, 



218 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

voted this year with a so-called " Free Soil Party " 
which absorbed the old Liberty Party and also cer- 
tain dissatisfied Democrats, especially from New 
York. These precursors of the Republicans who 
were to fight out the battle with slavery nominated 
Martin Van Buren for President and Charles 
Francis Adams, son of John Quincy, for Vice-Presi- 
dent. In the election which followed, their votes 
gave Taylor the victory, for they actually cast more 
votes in New York for Van Buren than were given 
to Cass, and thus Taylor carried the State by a 
large majority. The thirty-six electoral votes thus 
secured by him formed his exact majority over his 
opponent, since by the final count he had 163 votes 
to Cass's 127. Thus the election of IS-l-l was re- 
versed not only by the success of the ^Yhig candidate 
but also by the fact that the votes of jSTew York 
anti-slavery men this time cut the ground from 
under the feet of the Democratic candidate. Taylor 
fared well where Clay had fared badly, yet after all 
Providence Avas not so kind to the American people 
as seemed to be the case at first. The strong honest 
man who had been chosen for a position for which 
he had had no training, but which he would almost 
surely have adorned, was to enjoy his honours for a 
longer period than Harrison, but was not to be 
allowed to exert his powers to their full extent for 
his country's good. 




DANIEL WEBSTKK. 



THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. 219 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE COMPUOMISE OF 1850. 

The second session of the Thirtieth Congress, 
which assembled after Taylor's election, was unable 
to accomplish anything of moment beyond establish- 
ing a Department of the Interior -whose incumbent 
was to take charge of patents, pensions and other 
similar matters, and thus to relieve the other sec- 
retaries. Polk would gladly have had the question 
of slavery in the Territories settled by an extension 
of the Missouii Compromise line of 36° 30', but 
even this proposal did not satisfy the new school 
of Southern politicians represented by Senator 
Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. These men were 
disciples of Calhoun, much as the latter had been 
of John Randolph. The old apologetic tone with 
regard to slavery had disappeared entirely. Xot 
only was the institution, according to them, one with 
which no interference, within State limits, would be 
tolerated ; it was one of which the whole Union 
ought to be proud. It was necessary for the produc- 
tion of cotton, and cotton, which was more and more 
in demand in Great Britain and the North, was a 
veritable king with divine rights of its own. Be- 
sides the aristocratic society founded on slavery pro- 
claimed itself to be the best in the world, and far 
superior to the mercantile, shopkeeping society 
founded upon free labour in the J^orth and West. 
Slavery, therefore, was to be propagated, not merely 



220 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tolerated. The new Territories Avero naturally fit 
places for suck propagation, and as an important 
fraction of the Sontheni leaders had, ever since the 
time of the Missouri Compromise, denied the riglit 
of Congress to prevent any citizen of the United 
States from carrying his property into any Terri- 
tory, it was only natural that a clamour for equal 
rights in the Territories should be the Southern an- 
swer to the threats of the abolitionists and the dogged 
persistence of the advocates of the Wilmot Proviso. 
Concerted action among Southerners, looking to the 
enforcement of their view of the constitutional rights 
of the slaveholder, naturally meant a canvassing of 
the modes of retaliation to be resorted to should the 
anti-slavery men make the Wilmot Proviso effective, 
and resolutions like those of 1798-1799 and NuUi- 
lication being outworn, frank reliance on secession 
as a last resort was avowed by Calhoun and many 
of his followers. They were not consciously traitors, 
but believed rather that they were only standing up 
for their rights, yet they had certainly strayed far 
from the position occupied by such true Southerners 
as Jefferson and Madison, who could not think of 
disunion without a shudder. Calhoun thought of it 
without shuddering, yet with sadness; some of his 
rasher followers, however, thought of it with positive 
relish. 

On the other hand the i^orth had its extremists 
like the Garrisonians', who denounced the Consti- 
tution as a league with hell and would have destroyed 
the Union in order to escape contact with sinful 
slaveholders. It had also its determined Free Sellers 
as well as its anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats, 
who were resolved that slavery should deface no new 
Territory, although they had no intention of inter- 



THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. 2^1 

fering with it in anv State. The masses of the 
people, as was the case in the South, loved the Union 
and regretted the excesses of politicians on both sides ; 
yet in the iSTorth public opinion was slowly crys- 
tallising into a dogged resistance of Southern ag- 
gression, and in the South into a similar oppositio)i 
to what was honestly regarded as Northern aggres- 
sion. In both sections, too, could be found men 
who leaned toward the views held in the other sec- 
tion, but such men were much more numerous in the 
!N"orth than in the South, for politics was, as a rule, 
their determining motive, and there were more 
Xorthern Democrats needing Southern votes than 
there were Southern Whigs needing Northern votes. 
Such being the state of opinion and feeling in 
the two sections, it is no wonder that Calhoun should 
have tried to unite all Southerners, Whigs and 
Democrats, into a compact opposition against the 
Wilmot Proviso, or that he partly succeeded in tho 
session preceding Taylor's inauguration.* The 
House passed a bill for organising California as a 
Territory without slavery, but the Senate was ob- 
stinate, and finally the region acquired from Mexico 
was practically left under military rule. The new 
President, although a soldier, disliked this condi- 
tion of affairs, but his views availed nothing in dis- 
engaging the tangle. It was therefore a most dif- 
ficult problem that Polk's intrigues and, in part, 
his own military success had set for Taylor to solve. f 

* He had previously (Feb., 1847) offered a series of resolu- 
tions denying the power of Congress to discriminate between 
the States with regai'd to their " full and equal" rights in any 
territory acquired by the United States. 

t Taylor';^ difRcultie'; were increased by the growing solid- 
arity of the ultra Southern Congressmen 'who had just issued 
an iuflaminatiirA'^ address to their constituents. 



222 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The new Administration began on March 4, 1849, 
Taylor siirronnding himself with a Cabinet of only 
moderate ability, a body in which a financial scandal 
made a breach within a year. Polk meanwhile, 
whose cares had weighed on him and whose labours 
for the country had not been highly appreciated, 
v.'ent to his Tennessee home, and in a few month.s was 
laid at rest for ever. The storm he had raised was 
not laid, however, until hostile armies had tramped 
over his adopted State, jarring his quiet grave. Yet 
after all his fate was in some ways more fortunate 
than that which awaited his successor. Polk had 
entered on his Administration with a settled policy, 
which he had pursued with silent tact and which 
he lived long enough to complete, at least in its most 
important stages. Taylor entered on his Administra- 
tion with a policy forced upon him by the acts of his 
predecessor, and was doomed to die before he could 
either carry it out or defeat by his veto a com- 
promise policy he detested. His cai'eer is therefore 
one of the most pathetic in American history. 

Taylor's policy was partly influenced by the anti- 
slavery views of Senator William H. Seward of 
New York, who was now about to shine in national 
as he had already shone in State politics ; but it 
was rather the result, in the main, of the applica- 
tion of his sturdy common sense to the problem 
before him. He was a slaveholder, but did not 
believe in forcing slavery upon the Territories, cer- 
tainly not if the Union was thereby to be jeopar- 
dised. In pursuance of these views he did his best 
to stir up the people of California to frame a con- 
stitution before the next Congress should assemble 
and to apply for admission as a State. He also 
wished the people of 'New Mexico to act in the same 



THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. 223 

manner, the Mormons of Utah having already taken 
steps themselves to petition for Statehood. 

This sensible policy ''' of Taylor's, which, if ac- 
quiesced in, would have steered safely between Cal- 
houn's followers and the upholders of the Proviso, 
had been rendered feasible in the case of California 
at least by one of the most marvellous events of 
modern times. In January, 1848, that is before 
the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, which conveyed 
California to the United States, was signed, an 
American mechanic discovered gold while widening 
a mill stream near Sacramento. The discovery was 
not kept secret, and soon several thousand people 
were digging away for the precious metal, leaving 
their ordinary vocations unattended to. But the 
Californians did not long maintain their lucrative 
industry as a local affair. The news that Califor- 
nia was a land of gold spread rapidly throughout 
the world, and a rush was made for the favoured 
spot compared with which the recent expeditions 
to the Klondike seem rather insignificant. To add 
to the excitement and the numbers those were years 
of increased immigration, especially from famished 
Ireland. It is no wonder, then, that the year 1849 
should have seen a vast number of prospective 
" Forty-niners " striving in every way to annihi- 
late the distance between the Atlantic and the Pacific. 
Many tried the overland route, starting in long 
waggon trains from the Missouri frontier, passing 
through wild and desolate country, over the Eockiee 
and the Sierra ISTevada, until at last they brought 

* See his message of Dec. 4, 1849, which is also noticeable 
for its refei'ence to the Sandvvieli Islands and the statement, 
" We could in no event be indifferent to their passing under 
the dominion of any other power." 



224 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

up in an El Dorado which with its hurry and scurrv, 
ita crime and dissipation, its extremes of wealth and 
hardship, would probably have seemed an unideal 
goal to the romantic adventurers who sought the 
true but ever-fleeting El Dorado three centuries be- 
fore. Other adventurers tried sailing vessels and 
braved the passage of Cape Horn. A steamer which 
left Xew York in October with one passenger for 
California found at Panama in January, so Mr. 
Schouler tells us, fifteen hundred persons struggling 
to get places on board. Under such conditions it 
is no wonder that before 1850 California numbered 
upwards of 100,000 inhabitants, or that, when these 
in November voted on the constitution previously 
framed at Monterey in accordance with suggestions 
from Washington, they cordially supported a clause 
forbidding slavery. Such free and adventurous men 
naturally gave no support to the theory that slavery 
is the best basis on which to rear a great social struc- 
ture. 

XeM' Mexico, whose boundaries were threatened 
by greedy Texas, had no such influx of settlers as 
California and remained much more of a Mexican 
province; Taylor's plans for its assumption of State- 
hood have not therefore been realised even to the 
present day. Utah has been more fortunate, and 
its peculiar position in 1849 demands a word of 
comment. 

In 1830, Joseph Smith, a mechanic, who must 
also have been something of a genius, founded the 
Church of the Mormons or Latter Day Saints on 
the pretended revelation of the Book of "Mormon 
which he dug up, in the form of graven plates, some- 
where near Lake Ontario. He develojied a theocracy 
of the strongest kind, with a " promised land " in 



THE COMPROMISE OF IS-iO. 225 

the West, in which however there was to bo no idle- 
ness, although there were soon to be Hoiiris. The 
first settlement of the Prophet and his followers wfXf^ 
made in Missouri. Troubles ensuing, tbev founded 
the town of Xauvoo in Illinois and soon waxed pros- 
perous, but also defiant of the State authorities. 
In the disputes that naturally arose here Smith was 
arrested, and finally shot bv a mob. Brigham 
Young, his intended successor, then led the Saints 
into the wilderness and founded a religious com- 
monwealth on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. 
A city was soon laid out, and in 1849 a constitution 
was framed in order that the State of Deseret might 
be added to the Union, the Head of the Church 
being, of course, selected as civil governor. Such 
was the Territorial situation when the Thirty-first 
Congress assembled late in 1849. Theories as to 
the respective rights of slavery and freedom were 
to struggle in the face of such facts as the turbu- 
lence of California, the obstinate religious fanati- 
cism of Utah, and the medijievalism of sparsely set- 
tled Xew Mexico. A compromise was to be the 
result, and the compromisers were to suffer more 
in the end than the frontiersmen for whom they 
were legislating. 

Although no more interesting or important session 
of Congress was ever held than the one at which 
our narrative lias now arrived, considerations of 
space will ])revent our doing its deliberations justice. 
It was the last in which the great triumvirate Clay, 
Calhoun, and Webster were heard in debate; it un- 
dermined the Missouri Compromise and brought 
the nation a long way forward on the road of dis- 
aster; it gave to men the most impressive of warn- 
ings against the follv of supposing that anv cora- 
15 



226 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

promise on a matter that involves a moral principle 
can possibly be lasting-. 

It began with a bad angnry. For three weeks the 
House balloted for a Speaker, and the only solution 
of the deadlock was found in abandoning the ma- 
jority rule and electing on a mere plurality. In 
this way Howell Cobb of Georgia was elected over 
the regular Whig candidate, Eobert C. Winthrop of 
Massachusetts ; for Southern Whigs and Free Soilers 
insisted on scattering their votes. When the Presi- 
dent's message explained his sensible plan of ad- 
mitting California as a free State and leaving Xew 
Mexico time to frame a constitution before assign- 
ing her to definite Territorial status, his fellow 
Southerners failed to stand behind hira, and his 
great Whig rivals, Clay and Webster, might as well 
have joined the enemy outright, so little help did 
they afford him. It was naturally the Senate that 
took the lead in the debates. Clay, though very 
feeble, had been persuaded by Kentucky to return 
to the scene of his early exploits, and was now fired 
by the ambition to leave one more great compromise 
on record as the proof of his double attachment to 
the Union and to the South and West. His plan 
was, substantially, to admit California as a free 
State, to establish Xew Mexico and Utah as Terri- 
tories without restricting slavery, to settle the 
lioundary strife between Xew Mexico and Texas by 
allowing both land and money to the latter, to put 
an end to the buying and selling of slaves in the 
District of Columbia, but not to slavery there or 
in the States, and to pass a new fugitive slave law 
that would make Southerners certain to recover their 
negroes Avhen they had escaped to the Free States. 
This motlev scheme was finallv txirned over to a 



THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. 227 

select committee with Clay at its head, v/hich re- 
ported three bills, the iirst of which, known as the 
*' Omnibus Bill " from its heterogeneous character, 
embraced the proposals concerning California, New 
Mexico, Utah, and Texas. But the Senate so 
amended the hybrid monster that, on its passage, 
it provided only for the Territorial government of 
Utah. Whereupon the discouraged Clay sought the 
seashore and confusion seemed to have settled upon 
the land, especially as President Taylor, after too 
great exposure to a Fourth of July sun, sickened 
and died on the 10th of that month. 

Taylor's death was most inopportune for the coun- 
try. His plan for settling Territorial difficulties 
had been a good one, and he would probably have 
stood to it, thus defeating by his veto the final com- 
promise. Even as it was, although he was cut ofT 
in the very midst of the crisis, the chief honours 
of the epoch belong to him. Although a slave- 
holder he did not yield to the pressure Southern 
men brought to bear on him ; although not a trained 
statesman he faced civil dangers as calmly and reso- 
lutely as he had faced his Mexican foes. Texas and 
Mississippi were threatening to settle the former's 
doubtful claims upon N^ew Mexican territory by 
force of arms, and Taylor declared that if Southern 
officers in the Union army failed to do their duty 
by the Union, he would command the army in per- 
son and Avould hang any man taken in treason 
against the United States just as he hanged the 
deserters and spies at Monterey. Such a man was 
not to be terrified by the meeting of a convention 
representing several Southern States, at Xashville, 
Tennessee, in June, 1850 — a convention which dis- 
appointed the extremists by expressing its hope that 



92S . PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

matters would be settled. Tnylor was a soldier and 
a patriot and, iu spirit at least, one of the greatest 
Americans ever raised to the Presidency. 

But it is not only in comparison with extremists 
of both sections that he shines ; he shines also when 
set beside Clay and Webster and Calhoun. All three 
surpassed him intellectually, but in this crisis his 
clear sense and courage and uprightness were better 
than all their experience and acumen. Clay, how- 
ever, deserves well of posterity because of the purity 
of his intentions, his unfaltering love for the Union, 
and the pathetic brilliance and strength of his 
oratory in this his last great appeal for harmony. 
All accounts agree that never before had he held 
his imperious nature so thoroughly under control, 
yet it Avould have been well could he have subordi- 
nated himself still more and supported Taylor's 
policy instead of opposing it. As for Webster, hi3 
course was destined to lessen his inmiense influence 
in the Xorth, yet not to advance him toward that 
long-standing goal of his desires, the Presidency. 
His famous Seventh of !Mareh speech, in which he 
supported Clay's compromise, was something that 
many of his staunchest admirers could not tolerate. 
lie seemed to surrender to the pro-slavery men, and 
the feeling of the abolitionists of Massachusetts 
toward him was well expressed by ^Miittier's 
'* Ichabod." "" So fallen, so lost," seemed Webster, 
yet after all there ought now to be no doubt of his 
sincerity when he represented himself as putting all 
his trust in the Constitution, as setting the Union 
above everything else on earth. ITis best efforts 
as an orator had been for the cause of Union ; his 
services as a statesman dated back to the era of hope- 
ful nationalism that followed the War of 1812. To 



THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. 229 

him as to most of his Xorthern and Western com- 
patriots the American Union was the hope of the 
world. Was it to be sacrificed for liberty in the 
abstract, for the sake of slaves of an inferior race? 
Besides, did not the Southern men have rights — 
was not the Union bound constitutionally to protect 
their property ? Webster was too old, his ambition 
was too stereotyped for it to bo possible for him to 
advance to the position taken by Seward in his 
famous speech at this crisis. Tlic idea that there 
could be a "higher law " than the Constitution was 
almost as galling to him as it was to the dying Cal- 
houn, Avho thought Seward not fit to be associated 
with. It is an idea which is not universally recog- 
nised to-day, for men still maintaiti that true patriot- 
ism consists in exclaiming, " My country, right or 
Avrong " — M-hich was practically Webster's position. 
Yet, surely the time must come when the conscience 
of the State will be raised to the level of the highest 
individual consciences and kept there. 

If Webster could not rise to the conception of 
this grand idea, still less could Calhoun, whose last 
great speech was read for him before a Senate that 
iiung upon his words. He died before Clay's com- 
l)roniisc was passed, but he was prophet enough to 
foretell the failure of all efforts to preserve the 
balance of power in the Union unless a change of 
heart came to the jSTorth, unless the rights of minori- 
ties were respected and slavery Avere regarded, as he 
himself regarded it, as a beneficent institution. That 
Calhoun still loved llie Union is quite apparent, 
but it was a Union of his own creation, a Union 
allowing State vetoes, a Union that gave the slave- 
holder every right that any property-holder could 
claim — in short, a Union that could not by any pos- 



230 PROGRESS OF TUE UNITED STATES. 

sibility maintain its existence in the midst of the 
nineteenth century. They were grand debaters and 
orators, those three great men of the Senate of 1S50, 
bnt between them they helped on rather than averted 
the civil war that was to rend the land they all 
loved. 

The death of Taylor after an Administration of 
only sixteen months, in which bnt one important 
political achievement can be chronicled,* for a 
second time tlirew immense responsibilities upon a 
Vice-rresident not equal to bearing them. Fill- 
more, now in his fifty-first year, was a good man 
but not a strong one. He was not a Democrat in 
disguise like Tyler, but his conservative ^Vhig pro- 
clivities made him all the more amenable to the ad- 
vice of such tried leaders as Clay and Webster, who 
were bent on applying the compromise methods of 
the generation just past to problems that required 
very ditVerent treatment. It was not long before 
the new President gave proof of the fact that there 
was also a new Administration. An entirely new 
Cabinet was constructed with Webster as Secretary 
of State — the increase of intellectual strength over 
Taylor's body of counsellors being counterbalanced 
by the fact that Webster's reactionary infiuence was 
predominant. For some time, however, legislation 
was balked until, about the middle of August, a 
bill passed the Senate admitting California with her 
free constitution. Just before, the Texas claims on 
New Mexico had been met bv an offer of $10,000,- 



* Tlie Clayton-Buhvev Treaty coiiohideii between John M. 
Clayton of Delawure, Secretary of State, and tlie Pritiah 
Minister, Sir TIenry T.vtton r.nlwer, which rather forestalled 
matters by ostnblishinji- an Anulo-Ainoriean protectorate over 
any future ship canal at the Isthmus of Panama. 



THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. 031 

000 and of a slice of land, a largosa which the con- 
tumacious connnonwoalth, already huge in its di- 
mensions, finally agreed to take. The way was now 
clear for the rest of Clay's programme, which was 
put through expeditiously. The most unpleasant 
feature of it was precisely the one for M'hich the best 
constitutional sanctions could be cited — to wit, the 
fugitive slave law. Hitherto the duty of returning 
slaves to their owners had fallen on State officials 
and had been but poorly performed. ISTow the gen- 
eral government was to take upon itself tlio disagree- 
able task by means of warrants issued by its judges 
or commissioners and executed by its marshals, who 
might call on citizens for aid. Fine and imprison- 
ment would be the reward of any person assisting 
the fugitive, who could be arrested on a sim])le 
aflidavit of his jnitative owner. Such a law wouM 
naturally excite indignation when ])ut into operation 
among Anglo-Saxons not used to slavery, and as 
Southerners soon began to make use of it in all 
honesty to recover slaves, some of whom had long 
been fugitives, it was but a short while bef<u-e men 
who had mobbed abolitionists were mobbing United 
States officers in order to rescue negroes. From 
such sporadic defiance of law it was but a short step 
to the passage of " Liberty Laws " of very dubious 
constitutionality, and the Southerner, who wa>? 
especially prone to rely on his legal riglits as his 
surest and strongest, had anotlier grievance against 
North and West, which extremists of his own party 
urged him to avenge and which Webster's depreca- 
tory speeches could not render more iialatable. Con- 
gressional failure to extend the Missouri Com- 
promise line to the wow territory or in some other 
way to control it with regard to slaverv, led, as we 



232 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

shall see, to some disastrous cousequeuces, but the 
strenuous Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 did even more 
harm iu stirring up the spirit of active, forcible 
resistance in a people slow to move yet certain to 
fight their quarrels out when sufficiently aroused, 
especially against antagonists as fiery as the 
Southern men of this epoch. But after all, from a 
purely academic point of view, the historian might 
be justified in holding that the surrender of the 
general government to the threats of Texas in the 
matter of her boundary disputes with !N^ew Mexico 
was the most pusillanimous feature of the Com- 
promise of 1850.* 

* See Fillmore's message of Aug. 6, 1850. 



CALM AND STORM. 233 



CHAPTER XIV. 



CALM AND STORM. 



The Compromise of 1850, whatever its ultimate 
effects, brought as a reaction to the excitement that 
had accompanied it a considerable amount of not 
unwelcome repose. Before it was finally passed the 
executives of Mississippi and South Carolina had 
used threatening language and proposed measures 
that looked to disunion, but the other Southern 
States not responding and the Georgia Convention 
of December advocating concession on the part of 
both sections rather than the secession it had been 
called to proclaim, it became apparent that the South 
as a whole preferred the optimism of Clay to the 
])essimism of Calhoun. In the iN'orth many stren- 
uous anti-slavery men left the Whigs for ever, but 
Webster and other leaders supported the cause of 
moderation and compromise, and in spite of the 
friction due to the enforcement of the new Fugitive 
Slave Lav.',""'' it was soon apparent that the masses 

* Among noted cases of riotinjc; over the enforcement of tlie 
law may be cited that of " Shadracli " at Boston in 1851 (f>ee 
Fillmore's long message of Feb. lOtli). itn'l that of Antliony 
Burns (1854) at the same place (]). 242). The indigi'a- 
tion at tlie law was natural enough, but equally natural whh 
the disposition of Webster. Fillmore and other moderate 
Northern men to insist upon the carrying out of plain obliga- 
tions. Abolitionists regarded it as a sin to return a negro to 
bondage and as a virtue to assist him to escape by means of 
the "underground railwaj'" — a chain of houses where the 
fugitive was cared for by day and from which he was speeded 
by night on his journey to Canada. 



2U PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of the people were for peace almost at any price 
and were drifting to the Democrats, who had every- 
thing to gain by preserving the equilibrinm which 
the compromisers had secured at the expense of so 
nuich ingenious effort. 

The public lassitude was speedily communicated to 
Congress, the last session of the Thirty-first and 
both sessions of the Thirty-second producing little 
salient legislation. Indeed the most impori nut 
events of 1851 had very little permanent political 
importance. The completion of the longest Ameri- 
can railway, the Xew York and Erie, was celebrated 
Avith displays in Avhieli Fillmore and his Cabinet 
took part, and the famous Hungarian exile Kossuth 
was received with an enthusiasm second only to 
that which had attended Lafayette's great tour. 
Kossuth, however, found that his facile oratory could 
not draw America from her policy of neutrality, 
although it did stir up native orators to attack Great 
Britain for her treatment of Ireland — a theme that 
was to grow more and more congenial to certain 
classes of politicians, A more important event of 
the year was the tragic collapse of the filibustering 
schemes that had been cherished for some time by 
revolutionary Cubans and Southerners desirous of 
conquering more territory for slavery. The third 
and most serious of the exiteditions led against Cuba 
by Narciso Lopez failed dismally, the leader being 
'' garroted " and a considerable number of Ameri- 
can adventurers being shot. A riot in N^ew Orleans 
directed against Spanish residents was one conse- 
quence of this sad affair and an exciting political 
contest in [Mississippi was another. The Gov- 
ernor of that State, General John A. Quitman, 
having been implicated in the Lopez expeditions, 



CALM AND STORM. 235 

was arrested by the Washington authorities, who 
had done their best to preserve neutrality, and 
had resigned his office before standing trial. 
On the miscarriage of governmental efforts to 
prosecute implicated parties, he entered into a 
contest for his former office against Senator Foote, 
an adherent of the Union. When he saw that 
his defeat was practically assured he withdrew, and 
Jefferson Davis, resigning his seat in the Senate, 
entered the race as a States-rights candidate. Al- 
though he had only a few weeks in which to can- 
vass the State and was in feeble health, Davis, while 
failing to beat Foote, reduced the lattcr's majority 
in a remarkable manner. Evidently the Union 
cause was not strongly planted among the slave- 
holders of Mississippi, and whenever this zealous dis- 
ciple of Calhoun should be placed in office with 
the united people of the South behind him, he would 
not surrender until absolutely crushed by superior 
force. But the people of America were too anxious 
for peace under the Constitution and the last Com- 
promise to be able to understand the full meaning 
of this Mississippi election of 1851. 

They probably did not understand much better 
the meaning of the presidential election of 1852, 
for deeming that peace would last they elected a 
very mediocre man.^ The Democratic Convention 
which met at Baltimore early in June pledged itself 
against anti-slavery agitation of every sort, and, after 
a spirited contest, threw aside Cass, Buchanan, and 
other leading politicians and nominated General 
Franklin Pierce of ]^ew Hampshire, a Mexican War 
soldier of no great distinction and a Congressman 
of perhaps less, but a pleasant, honest gentleman, 
acceptable to the pro-slavery men. William K. 



236 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

King of Alabama was selected for Vice-President, 
and then the Democrats made way for the Whigs, 
who had to decide whether they would put up Presi- 
dent Fillmore or choose General Winiield Scott, for 
although "Webster's friends were staunch they were 
not numerous enough to make his chances good. 
Prudence seemed to require that Fillmore be sup- 
])orted, for he had the considerable advantage of 
l>eing in present control of the government ; but, 
whether it be accidental or not, no one of the 
four Vice-Presidents who have become Presidents 
through the deaths of their superiors, has been able 
to secure nomination at the hands of the party that 
was willing to give him the lesser office. For fift}'- 
two ballots tlie contest was continued, Webster not 
Avithdrawing as he seemingly should have done. On 
the fifty-third Scott received the necessary majority, 
and the ticket was completed by the selection of 
William A. Graham of Xorth Carolina. The plat- 
form adopted favoured the Compromise of 1850, 
but not so explicitly as the Democrat? had done. 
while Scott himself M-as not warm enough in his 
support of it to hold the votes of some of the South- 
ern Whigs like Alexander H. Stevens and Robert 
Toombs of Georgia, who had already become men 
of note. There Avas not, however, any great diiTer- 
ence between the two jDarties save that the Whigs 
still believed in liberal expenditures on the part of 
the general government; but between the two can- 
didates, Pierce and Scott, there was all the differ- 
ence between a mediocrity and a great, though lim- 
ited man. 

But Scott's victories lay too far behind him to 
attract a people bent on peace, and the Whigs, never 
a well- united party, Avere now hopelessly divided. 



CAOI AND STORM. 237 

They lost their chief leaJeis, too — Clay early in 
the campaign, "Webster before it closed, but not be- 
fore he had more or less abandoned Scott. The 
Free Soilers also carried off some votes, and, when 
November finally came, Scott had the unusual sen- 
sation of being thoroughly beaten. He carried only 
the four States of Vermont, Massachusetts, Tennes- 
see, and Kentucky, his aminble competitor carry- 
ing all the rest, although not by large majorities. 
Thus the party of Jackson came once more into 
power, while the party of Clay practically passed 
from the political stage; but the Democrats were 
never to boast another " Old Hickory," and the 
age of Great Compromisers had passed as welL 

If Pierce was unlike Jackson in nearly every 
particular, he at least resembled him in having to 
deal M'ith a host of office-seekers. Yet it was not 
like the Tennessee hero to ride from Baltimore to 
Washington in a baggage car and to escape in dis- 
guise to a hotel where his zealous friends could not 
find him ; nor was it an act that became the Kepublic 
in which it had to be practised. But Pierce made 
a fine impression by his inaugural, and deserved 
well of Providence if good intentions could ever be 
taken as a substitute for good statesmanship. He 
chose advisers of fair ability, only three of whom 
need be named here — ^William L. Marcy of jSTcw 
York, Secretary of State; Jefferson Davis of Missis- 
sippi, Secretary of War; and Caleb Cushing of 
Massachusetts, Attorney-General. Marcy, of spoils 
fame, was of course no longer in his prime, and al- 
though he managed his department well, he yielded 
in the matter of influencing and guiding the Admin- 
istration to Cushing and Davis, particularly to the 
latter, who had re-entered public life only at the 



23S PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

solicitation of his personal friend. Pierce. Both 
Gushing and Davis were able men and meant to 
push the easy-going President forward into a policy 
of aggression.* They succeeded so well that an Ad- 
ministration which was litted out like one of the 
excursion st-eamers tlien so constantly seen on Ameri- 
ican rivers was soon breasting waves which wotild 
have severely strained the stoutest man-of-war. 

The only event of importance before the advent of 
the Thirty-third Congress was, however, connected 
with ^larcy's department, and indicated vigour in 
that branch of the Administration as well. It is 
important now chiefly because it goes to prove the 
falsity of the statement so frequently heard at present 
that it is only of late that America has made herself 
respected in Europe. ^Martin Koszta, a Hungarian 
refugee, having been arrested in Smyrna and con- 
fined on an Austrian vessel, found a protector in 
the American agent, Avho claimed that Koszta was 
taking steps to become an American citizen. This 
claim for Koszta's release was backed up by an Amer- 
ican man-of-war, and finally the French consul took 
him in charge until the contest could be settled. 
Secretary ^Jlarcy, with his fellow -citizens of all 
parties behind him, upheld vigorously the rights of 
American citizenship throughout the world, and in 
the end Koszta was released, f 3jut unfortunately a 
keen regard for personal liberty was not to be the 
distinguishing note of this Administration. 

A new^ figure now emerges in the Senate, whose 

* Cushing was a renegade from the AVhigs niid therefore 
anxious to prove his zeal. Somewhat similar motives perhaps 
actuated Davis and other politicians from the Far South, since 
they could best overoome the prestige of the Virginians by 
taking a more advanced stand than the latter. 

\ See Pierce's first message. 



CALM AND STORM. 0;VJ 

old giants are all passed away — Stephen A. Douglas 
of Illinois, already prominent enough to have been 
a candidate for the Presidency agreeable to the 
South from his aeoonimodatiug views on the slavery 
question, but destined to be still more famous for 
the part he was to play in dividing the Union into 
two armed factions. 

Douglas Avas chairman of the Committee on Ter- 
ritories, and, as it was becoming necessary to legis- 
late for civil government in that portion of the 
Louisiana Purchase now covered by the States of 
Nebraska and Kansas, he reported early in January, 
1854, a bill for the Territorial government of Xe- 
braska {to Avhich of course the j^rovisions of the 
]Missouri Compromise applied), with a faithful re- 
ju'oduction of the Compromise of 1850 so far as it 
applied to slavery in New ]\Iexico and Utah. Ne- 
braska was not to be dedicated permanently to free- 
dom, but its legislature should decide whether or 
not slavery should be tolerated, and it should be 
thereafter admitted as a free or a slave State as its 
constitution should provide. This was an extension 
of the principles of the Compromise of 1850, but 
it was an extension that broke the peace so sedu- 
lously aimed at. It was in line with views pre- 
viously enimciated by Cass and could l>e called an 
application of the principle of " Squatter " or 
'' Popular Sovereignty.'' It seemed a fair solution 
of a great in-oblom to throw the burden on the people 
most interested in the adoption or rejection of 
slavery in a specific region, but at the same time it 
was a clear surrender of a right Congress had hither- 
to exercised, and it was a concession to those 
Southerners who had strenuously argued against the 
constitutionality of that right. Besides it threw 



24:0 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

open to slavery territory which had been specifically 
barred to it in 1820 and thus annulled the work of 
former harmonisers. Southerners might, indeed, 
claim that the admission of California as a free 
State had broken the spirit of the ^Missouri Com- 
promise and that the present measure was a fair 
retaliation for the Wilmot Proviso; but while one 
may perceive the legal and technical strength of 
their position, one must always remember that the 
introduction of slavery into any region where it 
could take hold at all meant the formation of a 
slave party, a slave code, and ultimately a slave 
State. Hence the much -stressed impartiality of the 
new theory which left the people free to choose be- 
tween slavery and freedom was entirely specious. 
It may be readily granted that slavery could hardly 
have thriven in Xebraska, but pro-slavery men were 
eager to try the experiment and anti-slavery men 
were naturally driven to resist them. 

Douglas was soon forced to declare himself 
specifically upon what was after all the main point 
in his manoeuvres, viz., the abandonment of the 
Missouri Compromise. Late in January, 1854, he 
reported a substitute bill which provided for the 
establishment of two Territories, Kansas and Ne- 
braska, and pronounced the famous compromise 
line of 36° 30' void and of no effect, " being 
inconsistent with the principles of non-interven- 
tion by Congress Avith slavery in the States and 
Territories, aa recognised by the legislation of 1850, 
commonly called the compromise measures." This 
bold stand was in reality inconsistent not only 
with Douglas's previous efforts to erect what was 
known as the Platte Country into a Territory, but 
also with the general ideas, both within and with- 



CALM ANU STORM. 2-11 

out Congress, as to the scope of the Compromise 
measures of 1850. People had indeed known, from 
Cass's famous letter to Nicholson, from Calhoun's 
speeches, and from the utterances of extreme 
Southerners of the John Randolph school, that the 
Missouri Compromise by no means held the assent 
of every American as a constitutional or wise 
measure; but it had been acquiesced in for thirty- 
four years, and few or no people before Douglas seem 
to have thought that it had been done away with by 
the act of IS 50. Even the extreme Southerners 
wished rather than thought it had been. It is always 
safer, perhaps, to assume personal integrity and sin- 
cerity in statesmen of past generations whose meas- 
ures move our present wonder and indignation, but 
it is hard not to believe that his contemporary and 
subsequent critics have been right in their assertion 
that Mr. Douglas's coarse, masterful disposition and 
his selfish ambition for the presidency rather than 
any desire to see justice done to tlie South or any 
love of abstract political consistency induced him, 
at a period when the country believed itself to be at 
peac^, to raise an issue which was absolutely certain 
to produce discord and commotion to an extent no 
man could measure. 

Douglas was, of course, too shrewd a politician 
to take such a step without a fair assurance that ho 
could carry it through. President Pierce's support 
seems to have been secured at an interview held at 
the Executive ^ALansion, in which Pierce told the 
Committei^s of the House and Senate that he con- 
sidered that the proposed bill wa:^ based on a sound 
principle to wlilch the country was returning after 
having infringed it in 1S20. This is one of the 
most unfortunate statements on record and is a 
16 



242 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

clear proof of the folly of elect iug to supreme office 
an amiable mediocrity. President Pierce undoubt- 
edly believed what he said, bnt he should ha.ve 
known enough American history to know that no 
such principle as non-interference by Congress in the 
Territories had been sufficiently developed by 1S20 
to be really infringed upon. The precedents had 
been all the other way, and his so-called principle 
was merely a development of States-rights construc- 
tion to suit the particular emergency. What Presi- 
dent Pierce really expressed was not his own mind 
but that of Secretary Jefferson Davis, who had se- 
cured this momentous meeting on a Sunday after- 
noon that might have been better employed. Yet 
there is no such reason as there is in the case of Doug- 
las to suspect that the President and the Secretary 
were actuated by purely selfisli motives. Pierce was 
merely weak, while Davis had a vein of fanaticism 
in his nature. 

The President's supi)ort having been secured, 
Douglas and his friends drove tlieir measure throuiili 
Congress regardless of the clamours of the Northern 
press and of the comparatively silent amazement of 
the Southerners at what seemed to be a sheer gift 
of Fortune. vSeward and the other anti-slavery 
leaders, chief among whom was now Senator Charles 
Sumner of Massachusetts, resisted as best they might, 
but the bill passed by a large majority in the Sen- 
ate, by a slight one in the House, and was signed 
by Pierce on May 80, 1854. 

Just about the time that the Kansas-Xebraska Act 
was forced through in defiance of legislative resolu- 
tions and of private petitions of all sorts, a turmoil 
was created in usually sedate Boston over the arrest 
and surrender to his master of a negro named An- 



CALM AND STORM. 243 

thony Burns. The contemporaneousness of the two 
events is noticeable; for it was the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise and the enforcement of the 
odious Fugitive Shive I^aw that did what aboli- 
tionist agitators like Garrison coukl not have ac- 
complished in a century, aroused public indignation 
in the North and ])olitical aggressiveness in the 
South to sucli an extent that a civil war in which 
slavery should perish was the inevitable outcome. 

But very few persons yet saw with Seward that 
an " irre])ressible conflict " was at hand, and ex- 
travagant Southerners still dreanKul of conquering 
Mexico and annexing Cuba. Late in 1853 a certain 
William Walker \indertook to turn Lower Califor- 
nia into a republic, much as TTouston had done in 
Texas, but he was soon forced to beat a retreat, leav- 
ing to .James Gadsden, of Soutli (Carolina, the less 
questionable honour of rounding out the territory 
acquired from Mexico, by means of a treaty by which 
something less than 20,000,000 acres, now forming 
part of Arizona and New Mexico, were purchased 
for $10,000,000. Far less creditable to the United 
States was the bombardment of Grey town on the 
coast of (^entral America — a region given over to 
anarchy and in which preponderant British in- 
fluences were legitimately feared by staunch up- 
holders or rather expounders of the Monroe Doctrine 
wdio were not satisfied with Great Britain's interpre- 
tation of the (Jlayton-Bulwer 1'reaty. A warrant 
for the arrest of a steamship captain for shooting 
a negro was resisted by passengei-s, led by an Ameri- 
can minister, to Nicaragua, and when the latter was 
afterwards assaulted in a street fight, a United 
States ship of war was despatcht^d to Greytown de- 
manding apologies and the payment of a certain ex- 



244 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

travagant claim. I^o answer being made to the 
American commander, he bombarded the town and 
then sent a party on shore to burn it. A worse 
instance of the imfortunate tendency of strong na- 
tions to bully weak ones would be hard to find out- 
side of recent Samoan annals. Yet Pierce defended 
the deed with considerable unction in his second 
message. 

But diplomatists were also to share with fili- 
busters and belligerent commanders the questionable 
honours of the day. Pierre Soule, minister to Spain, 
had instructions not merely to press for American 
claims, but also to negotiate, if possible, the pur- 
chase of Cuba, which Great Britain and France did 
not wish to see absorbed by America, but which 
Southerners had long been scheming to get. To aid 
his schemes a conference was held at Ostend in 
which he was joined by James Buchanan of Penn- 
sylvania, then minister to Great Britain, and John 
Y. Mason of Virginia, minister to France. They 
issued in October, 1854, their celebrated Ostend 
Manifesto, which declared for immediate and open 
efforts to purchase Cuba, the maximum price being 
afterwards fixed at $120,000,000. If Spain should 
refuse to sell, the United States for the sake of its 
internal peace would be justified in taking it by force. 
The authors of the Manifesto neglected to state that 
one of the chief reasons for their precipitancy was 
the fact that England, France, and Eussia were at 
war and that it w^ould be therefore a good time for 
the United States to appear before the world in the 
role of a plunderer. They were careful, however, 
to deal at length with the advantages that would 
accrue to Spain were she to apply the purchase 
money to internal improvements, nor were they 



CALM AND STORM. 245 

false prophets when they intimated that the time 
might come when Spain would lose both Cuba and 
the price now offered for it. But if they had known 
the exact state of the Northern mind over the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Bill they would probably not have 
wasted their time writing their long Manifesto. 
Enough had been done for slavery by Douglas; the 
acquisition of Cuba was to be postponed for half 
a century. Meanwhile the country might be satis- 
fied with a treaty with Japan secured as a result 
of an expedition to that country in 1S52 under Com- 
modore Matthew C. Perry. 

A fusion of the enemies of slavery was the 
natural result of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation. 
The Whigs were completely broken up in the Xorth, 
and some of them went with Free Sellers, Wilmot- 
Proviso Democrats, and Anti-Nebraska men to 
form a party known first in a few States as Republi- 
cans, but soon accepting the name as a national onS. 
There was, however, another party, a successor of the 
Anti-Masons, that for a time reajied some of the 
benefits of party disintegration. This was a secret 
organisation called the American or the Know-Noth- 
ing Party, the latter appellation being due to the 
fact that members, when questioned, would pretend 
to be ignorant of their own secrets. As a matter 
of fact the new party had sprung up, chiefly in the 
East, as a result of popular efforts to counteract 
the influence of foreigners in politics and the 
growth of the Roman Catholic Church. The stream 
of immigration had been bringing over many un- 
desirable citizens, especially Irishmen, who had been 
quickly utiiised by shrewd leaders in order to plunder 
the better classes in the cities, especially Now York. 
When the Whig party broke up, the Know-Nothings 



246 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

gained many votes because they volunteered, as Pro- 
fessor Woodrow Wilson deftly puts it, '' with refer- 
ence to the slavery question, to be Do Nothings." 
Under ordinary circumstances secret associations 
are not tolerated in American j^olitics, nor do parties 
with a single principle, especially an illiberal one, 
thrive, but such was the confusion during the years 
1854 and 1855 that the Know-aSTothings gained 
quite a number of Congressmen and carried several 
States. Their political mansion was built upon the 
sands, however, and Avas soon to be swept away by 
floods that were to drive the xlmerican people into 
the only structure permanently stable in these dem- 
ocratic times — the temple of popular liberty. 

Meanwhile struggles at the polls in the East had 
been duplicated in the West, with the unpleasant 
accompaniments of fire-arms and whisky. The 
Kansas-Xebraska Act had undone the Missouri Com- 
promise, but had not settled whether a Territorial 
legislature could exclude or admit slavery when the 
Territory was organised, or only when it was about 
to be formed into a State. Slave propagators in 
Missouri read the law as suited themselves and 
poured over the border into Kansas, till then an In- 
dian reservation, in order to establish their favourite 
institution. Several pro-slavery towns were thus 
founded, and it looked for a moment as if freedom 
would have no chance in the Territory, for the 
'' Border Ruffians,'' as they were called with at least 
some show of justice, could easily return to their 
Missouri homes between election periods, and yet bo 
on hand whenever their votes were required in 
Kansas. But a slirewd Massachusetts man, Eli 
Thayer of Worcester, soon developed a scheme which 
showed that in such struggles brains will triumph 



CALM AND STORM. 247 

over b^a^v^, He proposed to colonise Kansas with 
free settlers who would outvote the pro-slavery men 
and secure the new Territory to Freedom, In pur- 
suance of his scheme he started the ^' Massachusetts 
Emigrant Aid Society," and by the close of 1854 
several thousand free settlers had poured into 
Kansas and founded the towns of Lawrence and To- 
peka. In the meantime the Territorial Governor, 
Andrew H. Keeder, an appointee of the President's, 
tried to govern fairly, but could not shut his eyes to 
the fraudulent proceedings of the Missourians, who, 
early in the spring of 1855, in the election for 
members of the Territorial legislature, made the 
ballot boxes show almost as many voters as a recent 
census had been able to show inhabitants, licedev, 
however, only threw out certain pro-slavery candi- 
dates, whose Free State successors were promptly 
unseated by the legislature. Then a quarrel arose 
over the legislature's adjournment to Shawnee 
Springs, and Reeder was removed from office by 
Pierce, who seems to have taken his cue from Jeffer- 
son Davis. The legislators, being now unhampered, 
passed a stringent slave code and doubtless flattered 
themselves that slavery had gained a great vietor3^ 

But the Free State men, under Charles Pobinson, 
an ex-California emigrant, resolved to imitate the 
example of that State by framing a constitution at 
once and petitioning for statehood. Repudiating 
the Shawnee Springs legislature and arming them- 
selves Avith rifles so as to be prepared to deal Avilh 
the Border Ruffians on their own terms, they held 
several conventions, and finally on October 9th cast 
over 2,000 votes for Reeder as their delegate in Con- 
gress, the pro-slavery men having recently cast more 
ballots, chiefly fraudulent, for one Whitfield. Later 



24:8 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

in the year a free constitution was framed at To- 
peka, and before 1855 had been ratified at the polls. 
But the new Governor, Wilson Shannon, of Ohio, 
sided entirely with the pro-slavery men, who cer- 
tainly had in their favour the show of legality, al- 
ways a great point with them. C^ivil war soon en- 
sued under these circumstances. President Pierce 
naturally taking the pro-slavery side. Troops were 
sent into Kansas and the Free State leaders were 
arrested on the charge of treason. A mob destroyed 
the town of Lawrence and chaos reigned supreme ; 
plundering expeditions scoured the country, and 
ruthless murders were committed, which were as 
ruthlessly retaliated. Such were the first fruits of 
Douglas's '' squatter sovereignty " and of general 
Congressional ineptitude. 

The Thirty-fourth Congress, which v;as soon to 
take cognisance of the work done by its predecessor 
in Kansas, assembled in December, 1855, with the 
Senate in favour of the Administration, but with the 
House in opposition. In the latter body there were 
many new men in consequence of the fact that the 
Kansas-Xebraska legislation had cost numerous Rep- 
resentatives their seats. In the division of parties 
no clear majority could be had for any one candi- 
date for the speakership, and it was not until early in 
February and the one hundred and thirty-third 
ballot that Xathaniel P. Banks, an Anti-Xebraska 
man from Massachusetts, was finally elected, and 
then only on a plurality. Fortunately the members 
seem to have felt that personal violence would be 
best confined to Kansas; but before the end of the 
session Charles Sumner's bitter speeches on the 
Kansas question and his personal references to Senator 
Butler of South Carolina had provoked Represent- 



CALM AND STORM. 249 

ative Preston S. Brooks of that State to such an ex- 
tent that he assaulted Sumner with a cane while 
the latter was sitting at his desk, and so injured him 
that he had to spend several years in travel for the 
sake of his health. Massachusetts kept his chair 
vacant ; South Carolina returned Mr. Brooks after 
he had resigned his seat. The unfortunate affair 
need not be dwelt upon at this late day, but it should 
be noted that such an occurrence was clear proof that 
passion was fast getting the mastery of reason 
throughout the land. Sumner's speeches were need- 
lessly exasperating; Brooks's retaliation was need- 
lessly violent ; but both mon were merely acting like 
the champions of old who rode out defiantly before 
their respective hosts. The days of true chivalry 
had, however, plainly departed. 

In January, 1856, President Pierce sent Congress 
a special message dealing with Kansas affairs. Ex- 
citing debates followed and an investigation com- 
mittee of the House was sent into the distracted 
region. Their report was favourable to the Free 
State men ; but a bill for admitting " bleeding 
Kansas," as it Avas called in the ISTorth, as a State 
with the Topeka constitution, while passing tho 
House with great difficulty, was rejected by the 
Senate. The deadlock was unbroken when the 
session ended on August 18th, nor had any army 
appropriation bill been passed, so afraid was the 
House to trust the President with troops that would 
be used in support of the slave cause. In view of 
this failure to provide for troops a new session was 
called for August 21, and after considerable trouble 
the army bill was put through, the Anti-]^ebraska 
men or Republicans standing fast to their principles 
but being deserted by some of the Know-Nothings. 



250 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

lu the meantime the quadrennial excitement of a 
presidential campaign was agitating the coimtrv. 
As early as Washington's birthday (^Feb. 22, 1850) a 
convention at Pittsburg. Penusylvaraa. had formu- 
lated the principles of the new composite Kepublicau 
party, the character of which cannot be better 
described than in the following sentence of Professor 
"Woodrow Wilson's: " It got its j^rogramme from ihe 
Free Soilers, whom it bodily absorbed; its radical 
and aggressive spirit from the Abolitionists, whom 
it received without liking; its liberal views upon 
constitutional questions from the Whigs, who con- 
stituted both in numbers and in influence its com- 
manding element ; and its popular impulses from the 
Democrats, who did not leave behind them, when 
they joined it, their faith in their old party ideals." 
As the Republican party is still vigorous to-day 
forty-five years after its organisation, it will lie 
necessary for any one who wishes to understand the 
trend of recent American politics to bear the above 
sentence in mind, for it contains the key to much that 
would be otherwise inexplicable in latter-day politi- 
cal history. 

The new party held a convention at Philadelphia 
about the middle of June for tlie purpose of nomi- 
nating candidates for President and Vice-President. 
For the former office John C. Fremont.* who had 

* It is only fair to ii.iuse for a moment to note the fact that 
the unheroic charaotov of American politicians at this and 
other periods should not be siilTered to obscure the really 
heroic conduct and character of some Americans in otlior 
walks of life. The career of Fremont is a case in point. He 
was born in 1S!3 of a French father and a Virginian mother. 
By hard work he sot himself employed as a teacher of math- 
ematics in the navy, then as ?d lieutenant of topographical 
engineei-s. He became engaged to th.e daughter of Senator 
Benton and was sent West, "probably to break off the engage- 



CALM AND STORM. 251 

won fame as an explorer of the Far West, was chosen 
Avithout difficulty, and ^Yilliam L. Dayton of New 
Jersey coniple>ted the ticket. The platform pro- 
nounced for the right of Congress to legislate with 
reeard to slavery in the Territories, demanded the 
admission of Kant^as as a Free State, and de- 
nounced the Ostend Manifesto. Among the leaders 
who undertook to advocate both ticket and platform 
were Seward and Salmon P. Chase, the latter now 
Governor of Ohio, as well as Thurlow Weed and 
Horace Greeley, the eminent political manager and 
the foremost editor of j^ew York respectively. 

The Tvnow-Xothings had previously nominated 
ex-President Fillmore for the station for which tho 
^^Tligs had four years ago rejected him, their theory 
of non-intervention in the slavery contest being an 
appropriate platform for him to stand on. More 
important Avas the Democratic convention which 
met at Cincinnati on June 2d. It upheld the 

raent. In 1842, having been secretly married to Miss Benton, 
he began explorations in the Rockies. In 1843 he saw tlie 
Great Salt Lake and contributed largely to the knowledge of 
the wild region around it. Then lie explored the Oregon 
region and after suffering many hardships reached California. 
In 1845 he exfilored the same region, withdrew with great 
braver}' befoi'e a large Jlexican force, then returned and was 
largely instrumental in securing California for the United 
States. He was lewarded by a partisan court-martial com- 
posed of graduates of "West Point, an institution lie had not 
attended, with dismissal from the army on the ciiarge of mu- 
tiny. Such a verdict could not be upheld by the President, 
but Fremont naturnlly left such a service. He was for a 
short time Senator from California, then undertook another 
journey of exploration on his own account. His subsequent 
career as a general in the Civil War does not concern us here ; 
it is sufficient to observe that with Pike and Lewis and tho 
Clarks and man}' men whose achievements in subduing the 
vast continent have been more or less forgotten, he furnislies 
a complete refutation of the notion that the annals of Amer- 
ica are uninteresting and unheroic. 



252 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Kansas-Xebraska x\ct, the Fugitive Slave Law, 
the filibustering expeditions — in short everything 
that had caused the formation of the Republican 
party. It could not thus be accused of cowardice. 
For President it finally nominated Buchanan, 
Pierce and Douglas being too unpopular in the 
Xorth and West. With John C. Breckinridge of 
Kentucky the ticket represented that fusion of 
Xorth and South which was the party's need so far 
as votes were concerned, but hardly its practice with 
regard to its platform, which was entirely pro- 
Southern. Yet although geography had its influ- 
ence on the Democratic platform, it had had a much 
more obvious influence on the make-up of the Re- 
publican party, which practically represented the 
Free States alone. There was thus a specious 
ground for proclaiming that the triumph of the 
Republicans would mean the triumph of one sec- 
tion, which would give the contending South a right 
to secede, although why on this reasoning the tri- 
umph of Southern principles should not give the 
North the same jjrivilege, as the abolitionists had 
long contended, is hard to see. Yet while the Soutli 
might not have fought to preserve the Union, it is 
most likely that any proposition on the part of the 
Republicans to secede in the event of a Democratic 
triumph would have been received by the South with 
a sense of injury. But men do not reason well ia 
crises, especially conservatives of gentle, lovable 
natures, and many good citizens in this campaign 
either voted with the Know-]N^otliing8 or else sup- 
ported the Democrats, believing that they were thus 
upholding the cause of the Union they loved so dear- 
ly. It was poor political reasoning, for if the Re- 
publicans had triumphed in 1856 it is doubtful 



CALM AND STORM. 253 

whether the South would have been sufficiently 
worked up to undertake immediate secession, and, 
while Fremont was young and perhaps rash, he and 
his party would probably have shown that they real- 
ly had no designs against slavery in the States. 
Thus an excitement gradually worked up might have 
been gradually allayed. But no such good fortune 
— if indeed it would have been good fortune — befell 
the American people. Buchanan was elected by 174 
votes to 114 for Fremont and 8 — those of Mary- 
land — for Fillmore. Fremont carried ^NTew England, 
!N^ew York, Ohio, Michigan^ Iowa, and California 
and ran close in other States ; but he could not unite 
either the Middle States or the West; and the Re- 
publicans had to wait four years for a better oppor- 
tunity and a greater leader. 

While this contest was going on the condition of 
Kansas was slowly improving, for free settlers kept 
pouring in and the commander of the national 
troops forbore to use them. A new Governor, John 
W. Geary, also helped to restore order, but Congress 
failed to legislate against the slave code promulgated 
at Shawnee Springs, and even after Lecompte, the 
Chief Justice and Jeffreys of the Territory, had 
been removed by Pierce, no successor was con- 
firmed by the Senate. Pro-slavery agitation was 
thus encouraged in the Territory and Governor 
Geary abandoned his charge temporarily to take 
counsel at Washington. 

Kansas was not, however, the only scene of pro- 
slavery activity. Walker, the California filibuster,* 
had interested himself in one of the numerous revo- 
lutions in ]Sricaragua and had attracted a large nura- 

* lie was born at Nashville, Tennessee, but removeil *-> 
California. 



254: PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ber of adventurers to liis staiularJ, which was 
nominally that of a person named Rivas. In May, 
1856, Pieree, against the advioo of Marey, received 
a minister of this quasi government, but the step 
did Walker little good. His effort to re-establish 
slaverv in oSI^icaraiiua failed, l\ivas absconded, 
Walker on becoming President was not recognised 
at Washington, he and his followers were over- 
whelmed and tinally ex})clled from the country, and 
the whole enterprise ended as a fiasco. Later in the 
same year (^1857) ho conducted another expedition 
against Greytown, but Commodore Paulding, 
TJ.S.iN'., dispersed the filibusters and sent Walker 
home on parole. He was not punished as he should 
have been, for Southerners sympathised with him 
and Buchanan did not like to offend his real con- 
stituents. But Walker could not continue such es- 
capades with impunity, for three years later he was 
captured on the Honduras coast and shot after a 
speedy trial. 

Returning now to the last session of Pierce's ili- 
starred Administration we note the passage of a 
new tariff act (1857), which was more or less of a 
compromise and gave evidence of the growing power 
of the lobby. We must further remark the failure 
of Secretary Marcy to adhere to the proposal of the 
European powers after the close of the Crimean 
War to abolish privateering, a failure justified only 
by prejudice against an efficient navy.* The Con- 
federates profited later from Marcy's action, but 
there seems to be a good deal of exaggeration in the 

* It must be stated, however, that the United States would 
have agreed to the proposition if private property, not con- 
traband, of citizens of a belligerent had been exempted from 
seizure by '* public armed vessels of tlie other belligerent." 



CALM AND STORM. 255 

etatement that they profited p,roatly from Jeffcrsoa 
Davis's excellent niamigeinent of the War Depart- 
ineiit. That J)avis was a most efficient Secretary 
lias never been denied, but he himself has denied that 
lie consciously prepared the South for the struggle 
soon to take place, and his word is unimpeachable, 
lie was a fanatic and probably Pierce's evil genius, 
but he was an able man and a gentleman. 

Only one more Administration now separates us 
from the lamentalde period of the Civil War. Not 
quite ten yeai's had elapsed since the conclusion of 
the Treaty of Guada loupe Hidalgo, yet the progress 
made toward disunion had been startlingly rapid. 
The territory coveted by Polk had been gained, but 
its possession had plunged the country into turmoils 
far greater than those that preceded the Mexican 
War. Slavery had been pushed forward so im- 
prndently that an active resistance had been generated 
in I^orth and West that boded little good 1o the insti- 
tution. Yet so blinded were its partisans that they 
did not perceive this fact ; nor had they indeed won 
all their victories ; but the Northern men who sup- 
ported ihem might have read in the fate of Pierce 
their own future reward for their subservience. 
Pierce had done what he doubtless conceived to be his 
duty, but he had rendered himself unpopular in his 
own section and had destroyed his usefulness as a cat's- 
paw. He retired to solitude, leaving P>uchanan to 
run the ship of state full on the rocks and Douglas 
to lose both his political and his physical life in the 
inglorious wreck. 



256 PROGRESS OF THPJ UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE BEGIISriSriXG OF THE END. 

James Buchanaj^^ inspired confidence through 
his age * and experience, and his inaugural address 
was conceived in a pacific vein. He believed that 
popular sovereignty would settle the question of 
slavery in the Territories, and that the vexed point 
as to when the inhabitants of a specific Territory 
should determine its status was a legal matter which 
would soon be decided by the Supreme Court. This 
was a reference to the famous Dred Scott decision 
which was to be given to the world two days after 
Buchanan's inauguration. In this decision the Su- 
preme Court, speaking through the mouth of its 
Chief Justice Roger A. Taney, Jackson's famous 
Secretary, who had succeeded Marshall, practically 
took away from the l^orth all hope of resisting 
legally the incursions of slavery within any Terri- 
tory and gave to the Southerners everything that 
their wildest champions had ever claimed. With 
the Kansas-Xebraska Act and the Fugitive Slave 
Law it formed a great trio of incentives to Northern 
resistance, and instead of being the capstone of South- 
ern triumph was in fact a millstone around slavery's 
neck. 

jSTo adequate description of the famous case can 

be given here, but it may be stated that Dred Scott 

was a slave belonging to a Dr. Emerson, who had 

* He was nearly sixty-six at the time of his inauguration. 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 257 

taken him into Illinois, a free state, and there 
allowed him to marry. The negro with his wife 
and child was then brought back to Missouri and 
lield as a slave. On Dr. Emerson's death his widow 
hired Dred ont, to his dissatisfaction, and he sued 
for his freedom in a Missouri court on the ground 
that his residence in Illinois had put an end to his 
status as a slave. Later on Mrs. Emerson transferred 
him to a Mr. Sandford of XeAV York, and Dred 
sued the latter in the United States Circuit Court, 
which had jurisdiction, as citizens of two different 
States were presumably involved." A verdict being 
obtained against Dred, his counsel, an able anti- 
slavery lawyer, carried the case to the Supreme 
C^ourt, where it was argued at length. The charge, 
often made, that Southerners pushed the case in 
order to get a verdict that v.'ould help the cause of 
slavery in the Territories, from a court known to 
be composed of a majority of pro-slavery judges, 
seems to have little foundation. It was a genuine 
effort on the part of his friends to obtain the negro's 
freedom, which in fact was given him after the final 
decision went against him. Indeed it is a 'priori un- 
likely that Southerners would have forced a case on 
the Supreme Court, since many of them Avere in- 
clined to insist that, being a part of the general gov- 
ernment, that tribunal was, as such, possessed of no 
final power to adjudicate upon the rights of a sover- 
eign State. 

Be this as it may, they were delighted to take ad- 
vantage of the free gift presented to them by the 
Chief Justice, who in a careful opinion, from the 
main conclusions of which only two justices, 'Slc- 
Lean and Curtis, dissented in toio, not merely de- 
* See Appendix A, article 3, section 2. 

17 



258 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

cided that Dred Scott had no status in the United 
States courts as not being a citizen of Missouri in 
the sense of the Constitution — an opinion which 
Justice Curtis seems to have demolished — but un- 
dertook to argue as to the status of slaves and the 
right of Congress to legislate on slavery in the Terri- 
tories. According to the majority of the Court slaves 
were not persons but property, and as Congress 
could not keep a citizen from entering a Territory 
with his cattle, so it could not keep him from enter- 
ing with his slaves. Thus not only was the Missouri 
Compromise, which affected Minnesota, a Territory 
to which Dred had been taken, unconstitutional, but 
" squatter sovereignty " itself, that new creation of 
the Democratic party, was without meaning, for 
Congress would have to protect the slaveholder iu 
his rights against a hostile Territorial legislature 
until the Territory became a State. 

For this famous decision, which naturally caused 
first consternation, then determined anger and op- 
position in the Xorth, little defence can now be 
made. Its legal basis was flimsy, if subtle, and its 
political and ethical basis was beneath contempt. 
It was an honest opinion, however, and probably 
deserves less censure than the Kansas-lSTebraska Act, 
for it was made by jurists wrapped up in the meshes 
of laws that took no account of human progress. The 
Court followed the Southern, indeed the American, 
trend of laying more stress on mere legality than 
it could safely bear. They forgot that they lived 
in a world of men, not of precedents, although, when 
they went beyond the strict limits of the case before 
them, they ought to have recognised the fact that 
they incurred the suspicion of being partisans, not 
jurists. Perhaps, however, they deluded themselves 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 259 

into believing that by pronouncing on the vexed 
question of slavery in the Territories, they would 
furnish a solution of the chief difficulties that con- 
fronted the Republic — a solution by which all 
parties would abide and which vrouid save the Union. 
It was a wild notion that had entered their minds, 
but after all they had had a great exemplar of a 
statesman judge held up to them in Marshall, and 
they are not to be severely blamed for endeavouring 
to imitate him by posing as patriots and statesmen. 
Here as always it is best to believe in human sin- 
cerity, even if one has to confess that it is often ex- 
hibited in conjunction with the grossest lack of 
wisdom. This is also the verdict we must bring in 
when we tind statesmen like Buchanan applauding 
a decision at which our blood runs cold, and setting 
themselves in sober earnest to make a whole nation 
of Anglo-Saxons, inheritors of Lord Mansfield';? 
bounty, acquiesce in the perpetuation of slavery. 
Verily it was a topsy-turvy world in which our an- 
cestors lived. 

Buchanan's Cabinet had a strong pro-slavery bias, 
which was due to the presence of four Southerners 
and of Cass, who acted as Secretary of State, but 
left much of his work to the President. Howell 
Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury, was 
considered the strongest man of the group, but the 
department suffered at his hands. After the Cabinet 
the most important appointment was that of Robert 
J. Walker, of Mississippi, Polk's Secretary of the 
Treasury, as Governor of Kansas in place of Geary. 
Walker understood tliat he was to give up all efforts 
to defeat the will of the Kansas settlers by forcing 
slavery upon them, but was rather to attempt the 
scarcely less herculean feat of making the Territory 



2H0 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

H State favoiirahle to tlie Democratic party. On 
this understanding he succeeded in inducing- the 
Free State people to vote for members of the Terri- 
torial legishiture, with the result that they won a 
clear majority in that body. But the pro-slavery 
men at a convention held at Lecompton adopted a 
constitution favouring slavery with a proviso that 
the article relating to the institution was the only 
one that should be submitted to the people for rati- 
fication. Fearing some trick, as they had a right to 
do, and knowing that it was proposed to elect a 
new legislature and thus undo work already done, the 
Free State people stayed away from the polls and the 
Lecompton travesty on popular government was 
easily carried by a partisan vote. Walker, justly in- 
dignant, went to AVashington in order to protest 
against conduct which, it was believed, had Admin- 
istration sanction. The President and his Cabinet 
were hearty advocates of the L(!c"ompton iniquity, 
and Walker resigned. Meanwhile the Free State 
legislature had shrewdly submitted the whole Le- 
compton constitution to the people, and it had been 
rejected by a majority of over 11,000. Yet Buchanan 
in a special message to the Thirty-fifth Congress 
urged the admission of Kansas as a State under the 
obnoxious instrument. A long and fierce debate, iu- 
ters])ersed with fisticuffs, was the result, Douglas, to 
his credit, standing squarely up against the major- 
ity of his party. Even nuclninan's new Oovernor 
of the Territory, Denver, when he had surveyed the 
situation, wrote begging the President to abandon 
his attempt to force the admission of Kansas under 
the Lecompton constitution; but pro-slavery men 
were obstinate and the fight was waged, the Ad- 
ministration's measure i")assing the Senate but failing 



THE BEGINNINC; OF TUK END. 2<U 

ill tlio Ilousr. ]j'dtvA' a (listi)u.'t and (JiHcrcdilnldc; at- 
tempt to bi'il)C JCaiisas to conic iii iiiidcr tli(.' ])r(^ 
slavery coiiatitutiou was sviccossfiilly made so far 
as Congress was coneci'iied ; Init the Kansas people 
refused hy a large niajoi-ily to enter the Union ham- 
pered by slavery, cvcw if they could thereby acquire 
a largo grant of jiuhlic lands. Few more con- 
temptible measures than this " Lcconipton Junior," 
as it was dubl)ed, ai't; on recoi'd, and one; docs iK.it 
wonder that the JMormons of Utah should, alwnt this 
time, have seriously thouglit of waging war oii such a 
government. The Mormons, howevtjr, were nujro 
concerned with the removal of lirigham Yoniig from 
Ms position as Tei-ritorial Oov(!rnor. They put 
judges to flight and, under the name (d" Danites or 
destroying angels, their des])ei'a<h»es inaiignrated a 
small reign of terror. IJuchanan supitorted his dcav 
Governor, Alfred C'nmining, with forces under (jen- 
eral Albert Sidney Johnston, who w;is much 
harassed, however, by the destructimi (tf his supply 
trains. (Jongress hesitated to give the 1^-esident all 
the troops needed, for fear he. might use them in 
Kansas; but he managed the alfair well, notwith- 
standing, and what with augmented forces and 
judicious pardons secured com])arative tranquillity 
in Utah before the summer of 1858. Tint rV)ngress 
still refused to give so sti'aiig(; and fanatical a sect 
the right either to form a State or to elect their 
(twn olficers. (^nitr- contemporaneously, however 
(1S.5,S), the more normally settled Minnesota was 
duly admitted to the ranks of the Free States, and 
Oregon was soon to follow (1859), slavery thus 
losing ground in the Senate. The first attempts at 
laying the Atlantic cable and thus linking America 
more completely with the rest of the civilised M'orld 



2«)2 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

should have taught the South the same lesson of her 
increasing political and commercial impotence in 
the face of advancing civilisation ; but men learn all 
such lessons slowly, as, in its own sphere, the panic 
of 185Y-1858, which was due to over-speculation and 
a defective currency, plainly showed. 

The elections of 1858 proved that the Demo- 
crats had lost ground in the Xorth and West. The 
most important fact to be remembered about the 
campaign is that it brought into national prominence 
the man who M-as to be Buchanan's successor and 
to do more than any other person to save the Union, 
Abraham Lin.coln. Senator Douglas was a can- 
didate for rerelection to the Senate, and as his theory 
of popular sovereignty had been thoroughly dis- 
credited, it Avas quite plain that he would have to 
make a strong canvass if he expected to have enough 
of his friends sent to the legislature of Illinois to 
secure his election at the hands of that body. He 
could not, as in Great Britain, count on obtaining 
another seat if his natural constituents failed him. 
Against Douglas the Republicans set up Lincoln, 
and a memorable series of joint debates took place 
between them, Lincoln being the challenger. 

At first thought one would have said that the 
odds were in favour of Douglas. " The little giant," 
as his friends called him, was very popular, and an 
orator trained in all the tricks that capture an un- 
educated crowd. Besides he had had great ex- 
perience as a public man and possessed the prestige 
of leadership. But the tall, awkward man who 
stood up against him really won the debates and the 
admiration of the ISTorth and West, although he lost 
the election for the Senate. Lincoln had the ad- 
vantage of Douglas in his finer moral character, and 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 263 

his ultimate victory should always be remembered 
by those critics who are inclined to doubt whether a 
democratic government can be really stable, Am- 
erican history seems to show that moral Avorth sooner 
or later makes its due impression on the popular 
mind and hence on the policy of the nation. It was 
his moral worth joined to his shrewd, self-trained 
intelligence that brought Lincoln into this memor- 
able caraj>aign. Only the possession of moral and 
mental excellence could have made the boy born in 
1809 in a shiftless Kentucky home — not far from 
the birthplace of his patrician rival, Jefferson 
Davis — into a trained lawyer, an excellent speaker, 
and a politician respected by an entire State. Yet 
this was what Lincoln had become after splitting 
rails, running a flat-boat to ISTew Orleans, keeping a 
country store, and practising as a self-educated at- 
torney. Only in America could such a man have 
rapidly made his way to the legislature, secured a 
term in Congress — which he did not care to repeat — 
risen to the top of the local bar and been honoured 
by a minority party with its votes for a vacancy in 
the United States Senate. Of course Lincoln's kind- 
liness, his quaint humour, his flavour of the soil 
helped to give him the hold he obtained upon his 
fellow - citizens, but his moral elevation and his 
mental clarity counted for more, just as they count 
for more to-day. It should be remarked, however, 
that although it is probably true that we have, in 
the Lincoln who emerges grandly from the debates 
with Douglas, the most typical of all Americans, 
it does not follow, as so many recent writers seem to 
suppose, that we have in him the ideal American. 
Although all truly great men may be said, in a 
sense, to spring from the soil, and although they 



264 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

must continue to stand upon it if tlioy are to do their 
full service to humanitv, they must not too con- 
stantly remind us of their earthy origin — the grimo 
of the soil must not cling to their faces and their 
garments. But for all his nobility Lincoln shows 
traces of the soil; hence he is not so ideal, so supreme 
a man as Washington, nor one whom the nation 
can afford to set as an exemplar beside that unap- 
proachable figure. A democratic country naturally 
prefers a hero who partakes in slight measure of 
its foibles, its eccentricities, its vulgarity; but this 
is precisely the reason why such a country should 
select a more ideal hero standing somewhat aloof 
and, in admiring and imitating him, purge itself 
of its grossness. 

But if Lincoln was not entirely of the heroic 
race of the Washingtons, the Alfreds, the Pericleses 
of mankind, he showed himself in these debates 
possessed of not a little of the shrewdness of Jef- 
ferson, ire forced Douglas to declare that even 
if slaveholders could constitutionally bring their 
dreaded property into any Territory, they might bo 
forced out at once by " unfriendly legislation " 
against the institution of slavery. This answer 
helped Douglas enough with the anti-slavery men ot 
Illinois to win him his coveted seat in the Senate, 
but it was an answer that displeased the South, and 
two years later lost him the presidency. Lincoln 
was shrewd enough to see that his question placed 
Douglas in a dilemma from which he would escape 
in the way that promised best for the current cam- 
paign: he could hardly have foreseen that he himself 
would be the man to profit from that ansv>^er 
eventually. Yet while Lincoln was shrewd, he was 
also bold, and, what is more, was wise. It is to this 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. ^^5 

campaign that we owe his prophetic statemcut, which 
alarmed his timid friends, to the effect that " a house 
divided against itself cannot stand," that the gov- 
ernment of the United States could not " endure 
permanently half slave and half free," and that he 
did " not expect the Union to be dissolved." In 
these words spoke not only '' honest Abe Lincoln," 
but also wise, bold, patient, loyal Abraham Lincoln, 
great statesman, patriot, and philanthropist. 

Far less promising than this utterance was the 
v.ild message shortly after sent in by Buchanan, 
Avho seemed to think, as so many short-sighted states- 
men have done, that a foolish foreign policy is better 
than a troublesome domestic one. He believed that 
Mexico and Central America should be looked after, 
in a military w^ay, and that Cuba should be pur- 
chased, and a year later he returned to the charge. 
Yet he also had to propose a revision of the tariff 
in order to meet a deficit, and was finally glad 
enough to be alloMed a reissue of treasury notes. 

The year 1859 was marked by one event which 
the passions of the country necessarily magnified — 
Jobn Brown's raid. Kansas had nearly ceased 
"' bleeding," and even exciting State elections and 
wild Southern speeches on the necessity of reopen- 
ing the foreign slave trade had not availed to con- 
vince people that a crisis was really at hand. The 
foolish exploit of a crack-brained old man sufficed, 
however, to awake all except very sound sleepers. 
As a combination of a martyr and an outlaw, John 
Brown is a most picturesque figure, but as a person 
of historical importance he does not bear very close 
Fcrutiny. There can be no doubt that he had his own 
ideas of righteousness, which would have been 
partly congenial to a Hebrew prophet or to one of 



266 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Cromwell's troopers, but were unintelligible to most 
of his fellow -citizens living south of Pennsylvania. 
He believed in abolition and had brooded on the con- 
dition of the slaves until his mind had become un- 
hinged. Unfortunately for his fame it is hard to 
determine the exact extent of this derangement, 
while it is abundantly clear that during his career 
as a liberator in Kansas he played the part of a 
red-handed murderer who destroyed his victims at 
midnight merely because they happened to own 
slaves. Such a man ought not to have received, after 
this, money and encouragement from Northern 
abolitionists, but he did, and in October, 1850, made 
a foolish attack upon Harper's Ferry on the Vir- 
ginian side of the Potomac. He had about a score 
of supporters, a small supply of arms, and a still 
smaller supply of money. Yet he managed to cap- 
ture the United States arsenal without trouble, 
stopped a train and then let it go on to bear the 
news of his exploit, and in a few hours had spread 
consternation, not only throughout Virginia, but 
throughout the country. Soon, however, Lieutenant- 
Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived with a detachment 
of marines and the arsenal Avas broken in. Brown 
and a few of his companions being secured and the 
hostages they had captured being rescued un- 
harmed. 

The military farce having ended, the judicial 
tragedy began. Brown's trial was pushed forward, 
he w^as convicted as a matter of course, and w'as 
hanged on December 2. His offence, sufficiently 
grave at any time, was especially heinous to 
Southerners, whose slaves, if they had not risen on 
this occasion, might on another. Slavery is bad 
enough, but a servile war is worse, and this is what 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 267 

Brown had aimed at. To hold him up, therefore, 
as a genuine martyr at this late day and seriously 
to condemn the people of Virginia and the South 
for losing their self-possession in the crisis is little 
short of ridiculous. The Xorth lost its head just 
as completely when it denounced the South for its 
conduct. Yet there can be no question that whatever 
the wickedness of his Kansas career or the folly of 
his Harper's Ferry raid, Brown's manly conduct nt 
his trial and his execution commands respect and 
suggests the thought that confinement for life would 
have been a more politic punishment for his of- 
fence. Yet no people placed in the situation of the 
Virginians could have been politic, and if blood 
dt'mands blood, justice of a puritanic sort was in- 
flicted on Brown. But he had his revenge upon 
the people that hanged him as well as upon those 
Avho had egged him on to his fanatical enterprise. 
In fact he had his revenge upon the country which 
had tolerated the institution ultimately responsible 
for his death. His gibbeted body really went 
" marching on " before both hostile armies in the 
Civil War, not merely before the troops who sang 
the famous song. 

The Thirty-sixth Congress, a rather motley body, 
especially in the House which, with neither Re- 
publicans nor Democrats in a majority, took nearly 
two months to elect a Speaker, naturally investi- 
gated the John Brown raid, but found no evidence 
to sustain the Southern charge that a general con- 
spiracy for the destruction of slavery existed in the 
l^orth. It also authorised what is known as the 
Covode Investigation, from the name of the Penn- 
sylvania Representative who proposed it. The ob- 
ject of this inquiry was to establish the truth or 



268 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

falsity of charges of bribery and other forma of 
corruption that had been made against Buchanan's 
Administration.* Truth emerged in a very unpleas- 
ant form, although no individual was punished and 
little good was done the country. Dishonesty and 
servility continued, as they had done before and as 
they have done since, to endeavour to shield them- 
selves by bluster and " buncombe " about the neces- 
sity for foreign conquests. 

But the Covode Investigation soon paled before 
the nominating conventions of the great parties. 
The Democrats met at Charleston in April, and 
there in the hot-bed of pro-slavery radicalism the 
fate of the l^arty was sealed for the time being. Ex- 
treme Southerners upheld the view of Jefferson 
Davis that Congress not only could not interfere 
with the right of a Southerner to carry his slaves 
into a Territory, but ought to protect that right 
by adequate legislation. The Northern or Douglas 
Democrats, especially after their leader's famous 
answer to Lincoln, could not uphold this view, and 
many of the Southerners seceded, leaving the con- 
vention, which could not poll a two-thirds vote for 
any candidate, to adjourn to Baltimore. At Balti- 
more there was a further secession, but Douglas 
Avas finally nominated, with Herschel V. Johnson of 
Georgia as his companion. Both bodies of seceders, 
after holding separate conventions, managed to unite 
on a single ticket consisting of John C. Breckin- 
ridge of Kentucky and Joseph Lane of Oregon. 
Moderate men, of whom there were still not a few 
in the country, met also in Baltimore as a " Con- 
stitutional Union " Convention. They inherited 

* The President made a dignified " protest " against the 
whole proceeding. 



THE BEGlNNINfi OF TME END. 200 

the Know-Nothing j-joliey of hiuickging the oyo:; of 
the jinhlic in the presence of shivery, and put up 
John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of 
Massaehnsetts to bear their forlorn standard. 

The Repnblicans met in or abont the middle of 
May in the metropolis of the North-West, (^hicago, 
which even then was notod for its pnsh and self- 
consciousness. The choice of a proper candidate 
was especially important, not only because of the 
newness, but also on account of the heterogeneity of 
the party. Seward of New York was obviously en 
titled to the nomination on the score of past serv- 
ices and of intellectual eminence ; next to him prob- 
ably came (liase of Ohio. But Chicago was in 
Lincoln's State, and the local politicians made the 
best of their opportunity to push him forward. His 
debates with Douglas had won him a national repu- 
tation, which he had recently increased by a remark- 
able speech on the slavery question at the Cooi:)or 
Institute in New York — a speech which deserves to 
rank among the masterpieces of American oratory. 
Thus Lincoln was favourably known and fortunately 
had made no such enemies as the more prominent 
Seward had done. When the voting commenced 
it was found that the Western candidate stood next 
to Seward; the second ballot brought him nearly 
up to the leader, the third gave him a majority — 
the Bepublicans not ham])ering themselves with the 
two-thirds rule that had so frequently hurt the Dem- 
ocrats. Yet after all Lincoln's nomination illu><- 
trated the luck of the Republic rather than its wis- 
dom, for he was really only the " favourite son " 
of a crude locality and might, for aught the cheering 
delegates knew, prove a complete failure as an ex- 
ecutive. The convention, however, loft their vast 



270 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

" \YigAvain " with onthusiasin, liaving chosen Han- 
nibal Hamlin of Maine to complete the most im- 
portant ticket ever pnt forth in America. 

The campaign that followed was too intense to 
be very noisy. The Ivepublieans labonred nnder the 
disadvantage of being plainly a sectional party, but 
they had the advantage of moral earnestness and of 
being nnited among themselves, for even Seward 
supported Lincoln sturdily. They had the further 
advantage of having a divided party against them. 
Breckinridge had the support of the ultva-Southern- 
ers, who were rapidly increasing in nund>crs, as 
well as the secret good wishes of the Administra- 
tion ; Douglas had his popularity and his energy to 
count on, but they finally brought him only 12 votes, 
less than a third of the nmnber which the throe 
border States of Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky 
gave to Bell, the candidate of the trimming Consti- 
tutional Unionists. Lincoln and Breckinridge were 
thus left to divide the bulk of the electoral votes 
between them, the former obtaining ISO to tho 
hitter's 72. Yet after all Douglas's popular vote 
came next to that of Lincoln, who might not have 
■won against a single candidate. 

Meanwhile the Southerners had been for months 
working themselves up to the determination to secede 
from the Union should a sectional candidate, a 
*' Black Bepublican," be elected. Leaders had 
thr^titened such a step for several years and had 
gradually brought many of their followers to agree 
with them as to its necessity. They failed to give 
the Republican party credit for honesty in its an- 
nounced purpose of not interfering with the insti- 
tution of slavery Avithin the State>^ : they ignored 
the fact that no constitutional amendment against 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 271 

slavery conld be i)assod -witluMit a larger majority 
in Congress than the llepublicans eould secure for 
years to come; they were not prudent enough to 
bide their ground and see what their enemies would 
attempt. They were simply overweening anil rash 
and had been exasperated by abolitionist agitation. 
They had also taken deep and not unnatural umbrage 
at the '" Personal Liberty Laws " passed in so many 
Free States in op])asition to the national Fugitive 
Slave Law and, therefore, to the spirit, if not to the 
letter, of the Constitution. Besides they feared 
that if slavery were cheeked in the Territories and 
if no fresh fields eould be acquired for it, it would 
gradually decay even within the original Slave States. 
But most of all, perhaps, they felt chagrined at their 
isolation in the midst of the civilised w^orld, and 
were determined not merely to break a connection 
that galled them, but also to form a powerful re- 
public which should show mankind that the stone 
rejected of the builders was the very bci't of corner- 
stones. In all this they were courageously sincere, 
and furthermore lliey believed thoroughly in their 
legal right to break what they regarded as a mere 
compact between sovereign States. Having made 
their threat, they intended to carry it out. South 
Carolina, Alabanui, Mississippi, and Florida were 
practically prepared to act at once should the Tve- 
publicans win. The other Far Southern States, 
though still reluctant, were rapidly being brought 
up to the ])oint of seceding. The Border States * 
were obviously divided in sentinuMits, but while 

* That is Statei^ lying between tlie sectMlinp; Sontli nnd the 
loval North and West, such af? Virginia, ]\rarylatid, Kentucky, 
and Missouri. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas may 
also be included. 



272 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

dinging to the old Union could not bo expected to 
lend a hand in coercing any seceding State or States. 
Thus matters stcx)d when Lincoln was elected ou 
November 0, ISOO. 

South Carolina was the first to act. Her legisla- 
ture had continued in session until the election was 
over, and when no doubts remained as to Lincoln'.-? 
victory, it called a State convention and made mili- 
tary preparations. The convention met in Columbia 
on December 17, but adjourned to Charleston, and 
on the 20th passed its famous '* Ordinance to Dis- 
solve the L^nion." Three commissioners were ai" 
once despatched to Washington to treat with the now 
foreign government of the United States with re- 
gard to forts and other property of the Union, and 
efforts were made to bring about the secession of 
other States and the formation of a Southern Con 
federacy. The first step in opposition to these mo- 
mentous actions was taken by ^fajor Kobert Ander- 
son of Kentucky, who, abandoning the untenabh^ 
Fort ^Nfoultrie of which he was in charge, posted 
himself in Fort Sumter, which, being on an island, 
could be better held for the Union if succour were 
speedily provided by the authorities in Washing-to]!. 

These latter were not, however, in a resolute mo(vl. 
The President was vacillating and, tliough loyal tn 
the LTnion, did not believe in the right to coerce a 
sovereign State.* His position seems absurd, for 
to deny both the right of secession and that of 
coercion is practically to deny that the earth is in- 
habited by men instead of by metaphysical abstrac- 

* His last message liad, however, one pleasant announce- 
ment, to wit that the romplications with Great Britain with 
regard to Central America and the Claytuu-lJulwer Treaty 
were at an end. 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 273 

tions. Yet when people base government on idea:-; 
of mere legality as Americans are constantly 
tempted to do, very queer ideas of political duty 
are sure to emerge. Bnelianan was doubtless honest, 
but he was the worst Executive the country could 
have had at such a crisis. He had taken no measures 
to secure Union property in the South, probably 
yielding to his Southern Cabinet advisers; but he 
was at least strong enough to resist the demand of 
the Carolina Commissioners that Anderson should be 
ordered to evacuate Fort Sumter. lie also in the 
end refused to receive communications from the 
commissioners after their disappointment in not 
getting their own way had made them insulting. 
Finally, too, he surrounded himself wich a loyal 
(^abinet, through resignations which he was not 
courageous enough to force. Cobb's resignation re- 
moved an incompetent fiinuicier from the Treasury 
and Floyd's a distrusted head from the War De- 
partment. Cass left the Department of State for 
better reasons than his colleagues could give, for lie 
was at heart loyal, but it was well that a more 
vigorous man should have so important a post at 
such a crisis. The reorganised Cabinet insisted on 
reinforcing Anderson at Fort Sumter, but the at- 
tomjit was made with a merchant steamer. The 
Star of the West, which turned back at the fire of 
the Carolinian batteries (Jan. 9, ISOl). This was 
not a very bold stroke on the part of the Admin- 
istration, but it at least served tlie Southerners M'ith 
matter for indignalion and for charges that the 
Xorth was bent on war. It also led to the dis- 
covery that Thompson, the Secretary of the Interior, 
hads warned the Carolinians of the intended rein- 
forcement. This Secretarv now resigned, as he would 
18 



271 PROGRESS OF Till: UNITED STATES. 

have done in any case, for his State, Mississippi, 
seceded on the same day that The Star of the 
West was fired on. Buchanan then concluded witli 
the Southern politicians still left in Congress a sort 
of armistice by vrhich he Avas to he allowed to finish 
out his regime in peace — the forts to be neither re- 
inforced nor captured. It was a most cowardly 
compromise, but after all he was an old man bred 
upon political makeshifts. Congress was doing little 
or nothing to help him, and his now loyal advisers 
were new to their places and would keep them but a 
little while. The chief of these advisers deserve, 
however, to be named. They were Jeremiah S. 
Black, Secretary of State; Edwin ^^r. Stanton, At- 
torney-General; Joseph Holt, Secretary of War; and 
John A. Dix, Secretary of the Treasury. The latter 
is still remembered for his famous order to his sub- 
ordinates: ''If any man attempts to haul down the 
American flag, shoot him on the spot " — an order 
with which Winfield Scott, M-ho, old as he was, had 
been labouring for months to get Buchanan into an 
attitude of aggressive resistance, heartily concurred. 
Meanwhile the four States of Florida, Alabama, 
Georgia, and Louisiana had followed the examples 
of South Carolina and Mississippi, and had se- 
cured the forts and other Union property within their 
limits. As fast as they seceded, their Senators and 
Ivepresentatives at Washington would bow themselves 
out of Congress, Sehators assuming sincerely the airs 
of plenipotentiaries withdrawing from a Congress 
of European powers. Texas followed the lead of 
her older sisters on Eebruary 1, 18G1. Three days 
later the six original seceding States were represented 
in a Congress at Montgomery, Alabama, where a 
provisional government for a year was established 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 275 

with Jefferson Davis as President and Alexander 
H. Stephens of Georgia as Vice-President. ISTcitliei" 
was a typical " fire-eater," as the ultra-secessionists 
were called, and Stephens had actually declared the 
movement for disunion to be by no means necessi- 
tated by the election of Lincoln ; but both men be- 
lieved firmly in the justice of their cause and Davis 
was destined to give it as hearty and efficient service, 
when his difficulties are duly weighed, as any cause 
can well hope to receive. The Constitution adopted 
differed from that of the United States mainly iji 
safeguarding slavery. There v/as every disposition 
on the part of the founders of the new government 
to settle peaceably and equitably with the United 
States for the forts and other property taken, and 
the idea of war was unquestionably far from some 
Utopian minds. Davis, however, would have pre- 
ferred to be commander-in-chief in reality rather 
than in theory, which goes to show that he at' least 
knew that nations are not to be easily disrupted 
when they consist of States that have worked together 
for three-quarters of a century and more, whether 
under a compact or a constitution. 

While the South was organising, efforts for pre- 
serving peace and the Union were being made both 
in and without Congress. In Congress Senator 
Crittenden of Kentucky, mindful of Henry Clay, 
advocated a compromise, which was seriously con- 
sidered by a large committee representing both sec- 
tions, but was finally defeated. Its chief features 
were the continuation of the line of 3G° 30' ac/oss 
the continent as a slavery limit, guarantees against 
interference witli slavery in t]ie States, and pay- 
ment by the general government for fugitive slaves 
detained in the Free States, which were to be ad- 



270 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED 8TATE:^. 

jured to repeal their '' Personal Liberty Laws." 
This compromise suited neither Republicans, who 
feared slavery extension to Cuba and ]\Iexico, nor 
Southerners, whose desire for independence had been 
whetted. Equally ineflfoctive was the so-called 
" Peace Convention '' which held secret sessions at 
^Yasliington during the month of February. It had 
been summoned through the efforts of Virginia, and, 
although twenty States were represented in it, was 
in reality an expression of the desires and sym- 
pathies of the Border States. In choosing ex-Presi- 
dent Tyler to be its chief oSicer it gave, perhaps, 
suiHcient evidence of the honest ineptitude of its in- 
tentions. Still these elTorts at peace eased the con- 
sciences of some good men aiid should be treated by 
the historian with respect. 

To describe the state of mind in which the coun- 
try found itself during these months is almost im- 
jiossible. The seceders were really less porturbod 
than any other people, since they had taken tlieir 
great step, and if fighting was to ensue, they were 
very far from shunning it. Tlie Border States had 
no doubt as to their love for both joarties to 
the contest, but also no doubt as to their prefer- 
ence for the South and their intention to resist, 
if possible, any effort at coercion that the Fed- 
eral government might nuike. As for the North- 
ern States, they were willing to promise not to 
interfere M-itli slavery in tlie States, to repeal 
Liberty Law-;, to do anything in short that would 
preserve the T'uion without giving the Territories 
over to slavery. But tlieir people were more divided 
in sentiment than augured well, at first, for the suc- 
cess of Lincoln's Administration. Abolitionists were 
still fanatical, Democrats w^ere siill dubious of the 



THE BEGINNINCI OF THE END. 277 

propriety of coercing a Sovereign Stale or States, 
rcpresentali\-cs of conunerce feared the effects of pro- 
tracted war njK'u wealth and iudnstry. Not a few 
eminent men declared with Greeley that the best 
policy would be to "let the erring Sisters go in 
peace." Bnt on the a\1ioI(\ wliile there was nineh 
hope that things wonld right tlieniselves withont 
bloodshed, a dogged detei'niinatiou to nniintain the 
l.^nion ])revailedj and shrewd observers declared that 
the shopdceeping i)eople, who, according to the "' fire- 
eaters," conld not be insnlted into lighting, wonld 
rise to a man Avhen once the flag had bt'on fired on. 

Sncli was the condition of atl'airs when Lincoln 
arrivcnl secretly in Wasliington on February 23d. 
Scott had accomplished something toward strengthen- 
ing the city,1nit the Noi-th had done little towards pre- 
])aring for war and the Sonth had d'.nie scarcely more. 
A few days after Lincoln's arrival the depleted 
Congress passed a new tariff act, Avilh an increase of 
duties ranging from live to ten ]>er cent., and au- 
thorised a fresh loan ; thus the Treasury was propped 
up that it might bear the approaching strain. A 
new State was also added to the loyal list — Kansas, 
against the admission of which Southern votes could 
no longer be cast — and the Territories, of Colorado, 
JSJ'evada, and Dakota were organised. ]lut when all 
is said, Buchanan and the Thirty-sixth ( ^ongress 
handed over to Lincoln the most difficult task that 
any American Executive has ever been called upon 
to undertrd-ce. Vriiat wonder that Euro])eans and 
numy Americans thought that the Illinois rail- 
splitter would prove unequal to labours that would 
have sorclv tried a Washina:ton ! 



278 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE COU^^TRY AND THE SECTIONS OX THE EVE OF 
THE CIVIL WAE. 

The census of 1840 sliowed for the entire country 
no gain in area, but the rate of increase of population 
for the preceding decade was again very hirge — 32.67 
per cent — and the total number of inhabitants was 
17,069,453. The settled area inside the frontier 
line v/as a little over 800,000 square miles; outside 
the frontier it amounted to only 2,150 square miles; 
the average density of population Avas therefore 21.1, 
or, taking the entire area of the country, 8.20. 
Waste places are now practically found only in 
iN'orthern l^ew York, ISTew TTampshire, Pennsyl- 
vania, and Georgia — of the original thirteen States 
— and in Maine, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ten- 
nessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and 
Missouri of the new States. Only in Missouri, 
Arkansas, and Michigan, the three States admitted 
since 1820, was the unsettled area considerable; we 
see therefore that the process of filling in so charac- 
teristic of the decade 1820--1830 had been consistent- 
ly followed. The Territory of Florida, owing to 
the Seminole War, showed no such gain in popula- 
tion as Territories had been wont to do. This was 
true also of Wisconsin Territory, as the remainder 
of the old Michigan Territory was now called, and 
of Iowa Territory, which had been carved ont of 
Missouri Territory, the residuum left after the crea- 



ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR. 279 

tion of the State of that name. The filling in had, 
of course, been greatest in the ISTorth- and South- 
West, the removal of Cherokees, Creeks, Sac and 
Fox, and other tribes to Indian Territory having 
freed intending settlers from their greatest dread. 
The spread of these settlers had been, indeed, so rapid 
in the !N"orth-West that the Mississippi Eiver had 
been passed and occupied on the Iowa side. 

As for the various sections, we find that the per- 
centages of increase for both the iJTorth and South 
Atlantic States have fallen considerably, being re- 
spectively 21.99 and 7.G7 as compared with 27.22 
and 19.11. The drain to the ISTorth-West (which 
has increased from 87.49 to 108.11, Indiana alone 
showing a falling off) probably accounts for this in 
part for the Middle and iNTew England States, of 
which 'New Jersey and Massachusetts alone show 
increased percentages. The drain to the South- West 
also affected the older Southern States, not one of 
which showed a gain in its percentage, and some of 
which, like Virginia and South and ISTorth Carolina 
exhibited a conspicuous falling off. Of the South- 
Western States, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louis- 
iana had gained largely the others had declined. 
As for the rank of the States in population, Vir- 
ginia has changed j^laces with Ohio and dropped to 
fourth. Tennessee has passed its parent, JSTorth 
Carolina, and its elder sister, Kentucky, and comes 
fifth. Kentucky, ISTorth Carolina, Massachusetts 
and Georgia follow. ISText comes the new Indiana 
preceding the old South Carolina, with the new 
Alabama following. Maine and Illinois both pre- 
cede Maryland, which has dropped from the 
eleventh to the fifteenth place. Missouri, Missis- 
sippi, !N'ew Jersey, Louisiana, Connecticut, Ver- 



280 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

mont, Xew Ilainpsliire, j\Iichigan, Rhode Island, 
Arkansas, and Delaware follow in order, and suggest 
the fact that the newer States have been given liberal 
borders as compared with the older. Just below 
Delaware comes the Territory of Florida, while the 
tiny District of Columbia outranks Iowa and Wis- 
consin Territories. We need not concern ourselves 
so minutely with the growth of the cities, which was 
nevertheless marked, the proportion of urban to 
total population having increased from 6.72 to 8.. 52. 
Xew York, well up to the 300,000 mark, still leads; 
Brooklyn has made a great stride from the eighteentli 
to the seventh place ; Louisville, Rochester, Buffalo 
have all ascended t«ie scale, but Pittsburg' as 3'et only 
holds its own. Just below Pittsburg and in the 
eiglitecnth place comes the manufacturing town of 
Lowell, ]\Iassachusetts, Avhich has made the most re- 
markable upward leap of the decade. 

Passing now over ten years w'e find that in 1850 
the country's area has been increased to 2,980,950 
square miles in consequence of the annexation of 
Texas, the treaty with Mexico, and the settlement 
of the Oregon dispute. By the census the popula- 
tion has risen to 23,191,876 — giving a percentage of 
increase of 35.87, which is little less than that for 
1810. The aggregate settled area, including that on 
the Pacific coast, is nearly 1,000,000 square miles; 
the density of settlement is therefore 23.7 to the 
square mile, although for the whole country it has 
naturally fallen to 7.78. Waste spaces within the 
frontier have almost entirely disappeared, and the 
three new States of Florida, Wisconsin, and Iowa 
have been added, besides Texas. California is ready 
for admission, and the new Territories of Minne- 
sota, Oregon, and Xew Mexico have been organised. 



ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR. 2S1 

With regard now to the rehitive gains of the sec- 
tions, we find that New England and the Middle 
States have not merely held their own, but have 
decidedly augmented their percentage of increase, 
which is 27.60 as compared with 21.99 for the pre- 
ceding decade. Indeed Maine is the only State 
whose percentage has not risen — a clear proof of the 
fact that the growth of trade and manufactures 
has made it profitable for the people of the I^s^orth 
to bide at home and for incoming foreigners, of 
whom more will be said presently, to bide with 
them. The most remarkable figures are those given 
for the two manufacturing States of Massachusetts 
and Rhode Island, their percentages of increase be- 
ing respectively 34.81 and 35.57 for 1850 as com- 
pared with 20l85 and 11.97 for 1840. The Soulli 
Atlantic States have increased even more, their per- 
centage being 19.20 as compared with 7.67. Every 
State has gained save Georgia, which, like the I^ortli- 
Western States, could not expect to keep up its 
heavy percentages. The South-West, too, has not 
made such comparative gains save in Kentucky. 
The first five States have ke])t their relative rank- 
ing, — New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, 
Tennessee, — but Massachusetts has advanced to the 
sixth place, which, though, lost between 1860 and 
1880, was regained by it in 1890. Other noticeable 
changes are the rise of Indiana to seventh place, the 
upward ascent of Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin, 
and the continued dropping of North and South 
Carolina and Maryland. Texas stands just below 
Wisconsin and is twenty-fifth in rank. California 
would, if included, come twenty-ninth, and Dela- 
ware and Florida are last on tlie list of States, 
Minnesota being the least populous of the Terri- 



282 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tories, to -which, by the wav, Utah should reallj be 
added. 

Urban growth in the decade has been remarka1)le, 
the proportion of city dwellers to total population 
having increased from 8,52 to 12.-i0. !N^ew York is 
above the 500,000 line; Philadelphia, Baltimore, 
Boston, iS[ew Orleans, Cincinnati, and Brooklyn are 
holding their own, although the City of the Creoles 
has had to change places Avith that of the Puritans. 
The greatest leap upwards has been made by St. Louis, 
which, instead of ranking twenty-fourth, is now the 
eighth city of the Union. Detroit, Albany, Syra- 
cuse have also made gains, but Charleston has again 
made a considerable drop — it is now only fifteenth 
among the cities. Other Southern towns like Rich- 
mond and Savannah have also sunk greatly in the 
scale. It is interesting to note that San Francisco 
and Chicago stand resj^ectively twenty-fourth and 
twenty-fifth. 

The year 1860 showed no increase in area save 
the strip of Arizona and Kew ]\rexico purchased 
by Gadsden in 1853; but the 41,011 square miles 
thus obtained had raised the national area to 3,025,- 
GOO square miles — an imperial domain, especially 
v.-hen compared with the 827,814 square miles witli 
which the century was begun. Inside this great 
area we find that Minnesota, California, and Oregon 
have been admitted as States, and Kansas, Ne- 
braska, Utah, and "Washington organised as Terri- 
tories. Population has been moving northward In 
Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin ; west- 
ward in Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and the trans- 
Mississippi States to the South. In Florida and 
along the Gulf of ]\Iexico there arc waste strips, and 
the vacant patch in ]^orthern Xcw York remains. 



ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR. 283 

but on the whole the filling in process has been re- 
markably successful. Within the frontier line of 
5,300 miles there is a settled area of nearly 1,100,000 
square miles, which is increased to nearly 1,200,000 
when the outlyinf^ settlements are added in. As the 
aggregate population is now 31,443,321, the average 
density of settlement has risen to 26.3. 

The percentage of increase of population con- 
tinues large, being 35.58. Only Connecticut of the 
Xorth xitlantic States has raised its ratio as com- 
pared with the preceding decade, and the South 
Atlantic States have fallen as well, as have also the 
South-Western States, save Texas. The ISTorth-West 
shows a gain, particularly in Illinois, which now 
ranks fourth in the whole Union. Virginia has 
dropped to fifth place, Indiana, Massachusetts, Mis- 
souri, and Kentucky following. Wisconsin and 
Iowa have taken great upward strides ; South Caro- 
lina, Maryland and the smaller Xew England States 
have sunk considerably in the scale. The urban ratio 
has meanwhile greatly increased, standing now at 
16.13. Xew York has about 800,000 inhabitants; 
Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Baltimore, Boston, all fol- 
lowing Vv'ith great gains. Chicago has leaped from 
the twenty-fifth to the ninth place; San Francisco 
is now fifteenth. Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland ' 
have made remarkable progress ; Xorfolk and other 
Southern towns have dropped behind. Everwhere 
we find the influence of freedom or of slavery 
" writ large." 

Xov/here are these influences moi"© plainly shown 
than in an element of the jDopulation with which we 
have not hitherto had to deal — to Avit, the foreign 
born. In the decade ending in 1830 not quite 150,- 
000 immigrants seem to have come to the United 



284 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

States. The next decade saw this number increase 
to almost 600,000. By 1850 over 1,700,000 more 
had arrived, while the next decade added nearly 
2,600,000. Thus between 1831 and 1860 but little 
less than 5,000,000 immigrants had come in, most 
of whom threw in their lot permanently with the 
Amovican people. As was natural, considering the 
condition of the country and especially its famines, 
Ireland furnished the largest number of inmiigranls 
between 1881 and I860— a little over 1,900,000; 
but political revolutions and hard times on the Con- 
tinent had also proved effective. Indeed in the de- 
cade ending in 1860 more Germans had come than 
Irishmen, and in all three decades there had been 
considerable accessions of Englishmen and French- 
men. Innnigralion from Canada was also becoming 
noticeable, but as yet the Scandinavian countries 
and Italy and Hungary, which have played such a 
part in recent years, were only scantily rej^resented. 
With comparatively few exceptions these foreigners 
settled in the ISTorth and West, avoiding the South, 
where, as they were labourers, not capitalists, they 
Avould have had to compete vrith negro slaves. 'Even 
to-day they will not compete with free negroes, and 
thus the population of the South is predominatingly 
native born. Such an accession of labourers Avas on 
the whole a blessing to the ISTorth and V/est, for they 
built railroads and towns and cleared up land for 
farms. In cities like Nevv ^fork they helped to make 
politics corrupt, but in the impending struggle they 
would naturally take sides with the Union. If the 
foreign element had not been loyal, or if it had been 
entirely absent, especially from the West, where it 
was often preponderant, the xNTorth would have had 



ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR. Og5 

a longer, perbap? an unsuccessful struggle against 
the South. 

Another element of the j)opulation must now be 
considered — to Vvit, the negroes. In 1800, as we 
have seen, there were about 1,000,000 persons of 
colour, including free negroes and slaves, in a total 
population of a little over 4,300,000 — a percentage 
of 18.88. Ten years later the percentage was 19.03, 
but from this point it steadily declined until id 
"1860 it was only 14.13 — that is to say, of nearly 
31,500,000 not quite 4,500,000 were negroes. In 
the South Atlantic States in this year 38.87 per cent, 
of tlie population consisted of slaves ; in the South- 
western States 35.34. Counting the population of 
all the slaveholding States, including Delaware and 
}Jissouri, as a little over 12,250,000, we see that the 
slaves formed slightly more than one-tliird of the 
number of inhabitants and that over nine-tenths of 
the 4,500,000 persons of colour were found in the 
South and South- West. Over 3,500,000 people 
lived in lliose Border slaveholding States which did 
not join the Confederacy, so that practically only 
about 8,700,000, or in round numbers 9,500,000, if 
the Southern sympathisers in the Border States are 
counted, were to be matched against the 19,000,000 
whites of the iSTorth and V^cst. But the States that 
actually formed the Confederacy contained about 
3,500,000 negroes, so that if we were to say that for 
every six whites that the South could put into the 
field the ISTorth could put nineteen, we sliould not be 
very far Vv'rong, but for one great fact which is too 
often forgotten. The Southern slaves, being do- 
cile, conld be and were used to raise crops to 
support the Southern armies and could also be 
employed for manual labour in connection witli 



28S PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

military operations. Thus the able-bodied whites 
of the South could rally to their flag in greater 
numbers, proportionally speaking, than would have 
been the case in any other country in the civi- 
lised world. The whites of the Is'orth on the 
other hand had to keep the country going during 
the war, as farmers, mechanics, et cetera, and to fill 
the Union armies as well. Hence the ratio of six 
to nineteen does not fairly represent the propor- 
tional military efficiency of the two sections. It 
would be difficult to obtain such a ratio, but it is at 
least clear that the Xorth was distinctly the stronger, 
especially when it is remembered that with her 
wealth she could and did attract foreigners to her 
standard. The greater area of the South and its 
inferior density of population — no State in the Con- 
federacy proper had an average density of 30 to the 
square mile — was a hindrance to both sections, but 
particularly to that which must be the invader.* 

Passing now to consider the character of the 
mighty people v/hose numbers and possessions of 
territory have thus far occupied us, we are safe in 
concluding that the thirty years from 1830 to 18G0 
have witnessed an intensification of the types of 
character already described, rather than a departure 
from them. The Southerner, for example, has 
clianged, but he has done so by becoming more radi- 
cally conservative of his institutions and more in- 
tense in his desire for political domination. Like 
all other Americans he had been affected by the craze 
for wealth, but, although, as we shall see, it is a 
mistake to assert that he did not wish to share in the 

* See the interesting essay entitled " V/hy the South was 
defeated in the Civil War." in Prof. A. B. Hart's Practical 
Essays on American Oovernvient. New York, 1894. 



ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR. 287 

material development of the country, it is quite 
true to say that his vision was in the main circum- 
scribed by his own cotton-fields. On the other hand 
the JSTortherner and the Westerner had become more 
intensely interested in developing the country's re- 
sources and their own fortunes, by devoting their 
days, eitlier to trade, or commerce, or manufac- 
tures, or farming. The aggressive, alert American 
of Jackson's day was even more intensely alive in 
Lincoln's day. He had more colossal interests to 
attend to in the business world, and he had at last 
waked ujd to the fact that he must attend to his 
equally colossal interests in the political world. He 
was a less provincial man than he had been in 1830, 
and he had not allowed abolitionism, ISTew England 
transcendentalism, or any other of the numerous 
isms of the ei^och to unsettle his mind. His business 
enterprise and his cool practicality had not, how- 
ever, lessened his patriotism, his honesty, his unaf- 
fected piety. He believed in the Republic, in his 
party, in his Church, in his State or town, and in his 
ovv'n business, trade or profession. If he displayed 
vulgarity or coarseness, his simplicity and good nature 
made amends ; if he lacked strong and deep ideas, 
his mind was nevertheless quick and true within its 
limits. He was better educated than the average 
man of any other nation, and was seeing to it that 
his children should be better educated than he; he 
lived in greater comfort and gave it to his wife and 
daughters, to whom he was chivalrously devoted ; he 
might put up witli political mismanagement, but he 
must have the best omnibus, or railway, or steamboat, 
or hotel accommodation and service that money could 
buy. So he and his cities grew apace, and, if it 
were ever possible to include a man or a nation in a 



288 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

formula, we might say that " Success in the big 
things and comfort in all things " was in 1860 the 
motto of America and of the average American. 
Both were soon, however, to have a nobler motto — 
•■ The Union must be preserved." 

But there were also exceptional Americans. The 
Xorthern abolitionist and the Southern '' fire-eater " 
belonged to this class. So did the Xew Englander 
who followed Emerson into th€ mists of Tran- 
scendentalism, and, at the other end of the scale, the 
ignorant man or woman who followed Joseph Smith 
and other founders of new religions and sects. 
America was large and populous enough to absorb 
not merely foreigners themselves, but their ideas 
and customs, save when the latter militated against 
the peace of the country. In otlicr words, the micro- 
cosm of ISOO had become a macrocosm. But as the 
task of describing a macrocosm is one to which no 
finite mind is equal, we may find it advantageous 
to content oui-selves with concluding this chapter 
v.-ith a few paragraphs dealing with certain concrete 
topics of interest. 

As we have seen, the growth of towns in tlie Xortli 
and West had been very marked. This was due in 
large measure to the increase of manufacturing 
centres and to the spread of railroads. In IS 60 
the capital invested in manufactures amounted to 
$1,000,000,000, and the value of the net product was 
not far short of this sum. The average capital per 
establishment was a little over $7,000 — figures which 
have been doubled in the past thirty years, the use 
of expensive machinery having greatly increased. 
About one and a third million persons were em- 
ployed in manufacturing, the average yearly wage 
amountino- to nearlv $300, tlie hours of labour no 



ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR. 98'.) 

longer being counted from sunrise to sunset as in 
1801, but having fallen to about ten. As his clothes 
and food were cheaper and better than ever before, 
the American labourer had little reason to complain, 
Avhile his efficiency placed his employer in the same 
comfortable condition. 

With regard to farming, we find that the number 
of farms has increased in a decade from 150,000 to 
200,000, the average size being about 200 acres. 
In many respects the nation is still one of farmers, 
the value of their property amounting to over six 
and a half billions of dollars as compared with 
the three and a half billions of 1850. The average 
farm was worth about $3,500 — the highest figures 
in the last forty years. Such inventions as the Mc- 
Cormick reaper, which though patented early in the 
thirties did not come thoroughly into use until the 
fifties, aided the farmer greatly, as did also the re- 
peal of the British corn laws. ' In 1860 over 800,- 
000,000 bushels of corn and 170,000,000 bushels of 
wheat were raised. The cotton crops, Avhich were in 
large part exported to Great Britain, were of course 
the chief support of the South, but it is worth notic- 
ing that this prime source of Southern wealth was 
mainly shipped in JSTorthern vessels. Perceiving this 
fact Southerners held numerous commercial conven- 
tions, which always resolved that a direct trade must 
be established between Southern ports and Euroipe. 
But the vessels were not built any more than were 
the railroads which had been planned to tap the 
great West, and ports like Charlecton steadily de- 
cayed. Yet at the beginning of the Civil War, as 
Professor Channing tells us, " the tonnage of the 
United States exceeded that of any other nation : 
no less than five and a half million tons of shipping 
19 



290 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

was registered under the American flag in compari- 
son with four and a half millions on the British 
shipping list." 

Even more startling was the showing made by 
America in the matter of railroads. In the past 
ten years over 20,000 miles had been built and there 
were about 30,000 miles in the whole country. There 
was too much jobbery and speculation in the con- 
struction of the roads, but they helped the regions 
through which they passed, while the comparative 
absence of them retarded the South. Closely akin 
to the spread of railways was the growth of express 
companies in the forties and fifties, and the develop- 
ment of postal business — private individuals taking 
the initiative in all three cases instead of the govern- 
ment, which did not issue postage stamps until aft;^r 
certain postmasters had issued them for their own 
convenience. We must also remember that it Avas 
not until 1844 that Morse's invention of the tele- 
graph became practically oflfective over the line built 
between Baltimore and \Yashington. Fifteen years 
later telegraph lines covered tlie chief States and 
the great Westeni Union Company had been formed. 
The Atlantic Cable had also been laid in 1858, as 
we have seen, but it had soon ceased to work, and it 
was not made a thorough success until 1S6G. 

It goes without saying that the inventiveness of 
the American did not decline during the period we 
are considering. According to Professor McMaster, 
while not quite 12,000 patents had been issued be- 
tween 1790 and 1840, nearly 43,500 had been issued 
by 1860. Elias Howe patented his sewing machine 
in 1846, and soon had a number of rival inventors 
in the field against him. Two years before Goodyear 
had succeeded in vulcanising india-rubber. During 



ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR. 291 

the forties daguerreotypes were perfected and an- 
?esthetics discovered. In the fifties an electric fire 
alarm system and steam lire engines made less dan- 
gerous a scourge peculiarly devastating to American 
cities. The same decade saw the time between Xew 
York and Liverpool brought down below twelve days 
by the rival Collins and Cunard lines. Verily it 
was a period of transformation, and, prior to the 
]ianic of 1857, it was also one of prosperity. Im- 
ports and exports were three times as great as at the 
beginning of the period w^e are treating, and al- 
though the tariff was very low, manufactures, as we 
liave seen, had greatly increased. 

But the gain had not been entirely material. In 
science the names of Asa Gray, Dana, Henry, Silli- 
man, and Agassiz had continued for Americans the 
fame first won by Franklin. In literature jSTevN' 
Englanders had done notable work. With Emerson 
in philosophy, Hawthorne in romance, Prescott and 
jMotley in history, American prose took a distin- 
guished even if not a commanding position. In poetry 
Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell and Holmes had won 
some readers abroad and many at home. Mrs. Stowe 
in her Uncle Tom's Cabin had not only stirred 
up greatly the conscience of the I^ortli on the sub- 
ject of slavery, but had also produced a book that 
seemed and seems likely to be a world classic. 
What is just as much to the point, the rank and file 
of writers were producing much less callow work, 
and the newspapers and magazines had conspicu- 
ously improved. There had been a great extension, 
too, of the lecture or " lyceum " system, Emerson, 
Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell Phillips, and the 
scholarly Edward Everett being among the speakers. 
Altogether, even if transcendentalism had simmered 



202 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

down, Xew England had done much to awaken the 
national mind and to improve the national morals, 
and the ]\Iiddle States had seconded her efforts. 

It wonld be wrong to say, as some historians are 
inclined to do, that the Sonth had no share in the 
wondcrt'nl nuiterial and mental development we have 
jnst been sketching, for after all the Sontherncr was 
an American. As we have seen, he strnggled to es- 
tablish railroads, and by 1860 had built about 10,000 
miles, but, owing chiedy to his lack of facility in 
floating loans and to his improvident habits, his 
great plans could not be realised. His transatlantic 
]-)acket lines and his flourish in.g ports also remained 
dreams, and shortly before IS 00 he actually had 
visions of reopening the foreign slave-trade! His 
hands were shackled but not his mind, as he proved 
])v his incessant •political activity. He might have 
only eight cotton mills to the jS^orth's one hundro'l, 
but as long as he sent his bales, amounting to mil- 
lions, to Great Britain and the jSTorth and received 
in return imported or domestic manufactured goods 
he was contributing his share to the country's pros- 
perity, lie had done much, moreover, to help the 
l^iiion to win its great accessions of territory during 
tlie century. He felt also that he had preserved the 
native American type in an uncontaminated form, 
and that his private manner's and morals gave a 
touch of distinction to Amei'ican life. Pcrhaj)s he 
did not realise that, as he had fallen so far behind 
his age with regard to slavery, his patriarchal sys- 
tem of society could have little influence upon the 
busy world outside ; perhaps, too, he spoke far more 
harshly and disrespectfully of Ihat world than it 
merited ; but we should never forg'et that he was 
born to his position and that he did not deserve the 



ON THE EVE OF THE CIVH. WAR. 293 

harsh tilings said about liiiu hy tlic abolitionists. He 
was not cniol, and, in the aristocracy at least, he 
was not ignorant. A Soutlicrner by descent and early 
training, Edgar Allan Toe liad already shown him- 
self to be the most ai-tistic and perhaps the most 
oi'iginal of all American writers. A Sontherner, 
.Matthew F. Maury, had made valuable contributions 
to the physical geograp'b.y d' \\\v sea. And if Poe 
and Maur^y and William Gihiiore Minims, the ro- 
mancer, and Henry Tinirod, the poet, are al)out all 
the Southern names M'orlh counting in the annals of 
anle-belhun. literature and science, it should be re- 
membered that country gentlemen have rarely any- 
where in the world done great things in these de- 
]3artments of Innnan achievement. Yet even in our 
busy century there is room for the country gentle- 
man, especially when from his class come such men 
as Washington in the eighteenth century and Robert 
E. Lee in the nineteenth. 

The mention of General T^eo reminds us, how^ever, 
that it is time to deal with the great struggle Avhich 
is to test the respective merits of the two civilisav 
tions we have been describing. The philosopher and 
the poet may regret that the best qualities of both 
sections c<mld not have been blended peaceably; but 
the historian sees that this could not have been, and 
rejoices that the issue of the contest made for the 
downfall of slavery and the strengthening of national 
bonds. 



294: PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE CIVIL WAR. 



Lincoln's inaugural address must have convinced 
people who were capable of setting aside their own 
theories and believing the straightforward utterances 
of a plain-spoken man, that he intended to uphold 
the Union and to secure obedience to its laws in the 
seceded States. This meant war, or submission on 
the part of the latter. Yet while determined, the 
new President Avas far from rash, as the careful 
make-up of his Cabinet showed. His presidential 
rivals, Seward, Chase, Simon Cameron of Penn- 
sylvania, and Edward Bates of Missouri, Avere made 
Secretaries of State, the Treasury, War, and At- 
torney-General respectively. Gideon Welles of Con- 
necticut was placed at the head of the Navy. It was 
not a (Aabinet that satisfied every one, but at least 
it Avas not the Cabinet of a partisan. Yet Lincoln 
dominated it more and more, just as Jefferson Davis 
dominated his OAvn inferior Cabinet, but the x^orth- 
ern President had to use more tact in order to 
avoid the appearance of playing the part of a dic- 
tator. He had indeed to exercise tact from the 
first, for ScAvard feared the issue of a civil Avar, but 
did not hesitate to inform Lincoln that he Avas quite 
Avilling to run the government in the latter's name. 
After quietly putting ScAvard doAvn and, later, shoAA'- 
ing his freedom from prejudice by making a per- 



THE CIVIL WAR. 295 

sonal opponent, Edwin M. Stanton, formerly of Bn- 
chanan's Cabinet, Secretary of War in Cameron's 
place,* Lincoln governed prudently and gently, not 
without making mistakes indeed, but always profit- 
ing from experience and always relying on plain 
dealing and calm thinking. The results he accom- 
plished were so tremendous that it is difficult to 
avoid exaggerating his personal genius. 

For some weeks nothing of moment was done by 
either side. Commissioners from the Confederacy 
discussed informally the surrender of Fort Sumter 
and got the unfortunate impression from Seward that 
it Avould be abandoned ; but Lincoln finally gave 
notice that he would reinforce it, whereupon the Con- 
federates opened fire and Anderson was compelled to 
surrender on April 14. As had been predicted this 
meant the precipitation of a civil war greater than 
any other known to history. Lincoln immediately 
called for 75,000 volunteers, the North responding 
with a will, and Massachusetts with a promptness 
due largely to her energetic Governor, John A. An- 
drew, f The Border States also had their answer 
ready for the President. At Baltimore the Massa- 
chusetts troops had to fire on a mob, while before 
the end of May Arkansas, l^orth Carolina, and Vir- 
ginia had joined the Confederacy. Tennessee joined 
in an irregular fashion shortly after, but sentiment 



* Next to Lincoln, Stanton probably did more for the Union 
cause than any other civilian. He was an unlovely character, 
however, who made many enemies both in the North and in 
the South. 

t In particular. Governor Oliver P. Morion of Indiana and 
Governor Andrew J. Curtin of Pennsylvania won. with Gov- 
ernor Andrew, the sobriquet of " War Governor " because of 
the heartiness witli which they seconded the efforts of the 
Federal government. 



2\)^ TROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

in the State Avas iiioatlv diviJod. JSo it Avas in Mary- 
laiul. Kentuckv, and Mis^onri. each of wliioli fur- 
nished thousands of troops to the Southern armies. 
Yet none of the three h^ft the Union, though some 
^[issourians made an abortive attempt to do so. The 
retention of these verv important States was hirgely 
due to Lincoln's patience and tact, seconded as they 
Avcre by early military successes in Missouri. Mean- 
Avhile the Confederates had removed their capital 
to Eichmond and ■were prepared to threaten Wash- 
ington itself, and, Avhat was more important, had 
gained for their armies the soldier Avhom Wintield 
Scott thought to be the greatest master of the art of 
war then living, Eobert E. Lee, as well as the most 
dashing and successful corps commander of modern 
times, Thomas J. Jackson, soon to be known as 
'* Stonewall." 

The lirst oil"en>ive movements of importance on the 
part of the Federal forces were directed against the 
Western and the Eastern ]nirts of Virginia, a State 
which was destined to be the battleground par c.vccl- 
lence of the war. The former movement under 
General George B. McClellan was successful, for the 
Virginia mountaineers, like those of Tennessee and 
Xorth Carolina, clung to the Union. Later in 1S61 
General Lee was sent into Western Virginia to re- 
trieve matters, but the task was impossible and his 
failure temporarily eclipsed his military fanK\ As 
a result forty counties in the region set up a govern- 
ment of their own, the State thus irregularly formed 
being admitted to the Union by Congress on the last 
day of 1SG2. This partition of Virginia without 
her consent was unconstitutional. •'■ but a legal tiction 

* See Appendix A., artiele i, section 3, 



TPIE CIVIL WAR. 207 

eatisfied the consciences of men engaged in carrying 
on a great war.* 

The movement against Eastern Virginia resulted 
much more disastrously for the Union than thjit 
against Western Virginia for the South. General 
McDowell was defeated on July '21, by Generals 
Joseph E. Johnston and G. P. Beauregard at Man- 
assas, Va., a few miles from Washington. The 
battle was stubborn, but ended in a complete rout.f 
The si)irits of the C,\mfederatcs accordingly rose high 
and tliey regarded final victory as certain. Thov 
liad predicted that Xorthern soldiers would run ; 
they kiu'w that the Soutliern officers who had re- 
vsigned from the Union army to follow their States 
had left few peers behind them. What they failed 
to perceive was that a temporary advantage was not 
a permanent one. Northern life was less favourablo 
than Southern for producing volunteers efficient from 
the start, but a few reverses and constant drilling 
would soon atone for this disadvantage. Southern 
generals were, and on the whole remained, superior 
to Xorthern ones ; the Xorth also had the heavier 
task that falls to the invader; but cotton, the South's 
one staple, if blockaded, would be useless, and the 
iS^orth possessed a navy, a large population, and both 
wealth and energy. The balance of advantage rested, 
therefore, with her, and the South was doomed un- 
less foreign nations would do more than merely 
recognise her belligerent rights. For a time there 
seemed to be a chance of such aid, especially froiu 

* Tlie consent of tho povornment set up by the Virginia 
loyalists was of course obtained, but this was not the real 
Virginia conteniplalo.l by the Constitution, us oven such a 
radical as Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, confessed. 

f Tills battle is also known as that of Bull Run. 



298 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

England, where the upper classes were largely hostile 
to the Xorth, and where excitement was caused late 
in 1861 when the British steamer Trent was over- 
hauled and two Confederate Commissioners to Great 
Britain and France, Mason and Slidell, were taken 
from her deck. But the Union repaired its fault 
as best it could, and the sympathy of such men as 
Bright and Cobden and of the labouring classes kept 
Great Britain out of the struggle. The year closed 
with the South confident and the jSTorth grimly in 
earnest, but after all it had been more a year of 
preparations than of actual achievements. 

1SG2 opened with two series of efforts — to gain 
Richmond and to secure control of the Mississippi 
Eiver; the former was frustrated; the latter, which 
was almost necessary to the former, was successful. 
General Ulysses S. Grant, aided by gunboats, took 
Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on 
the Cumberland River. General John Pope, simi- 
larly aided, cleared the Mississippi as far as Mem- 
phis. Grant meanwhile ascended the Tennessee, 
which by its winding course gave access to Alabama 
and Mississippi, and threatened the railway between 
Memphis and Chattanooga — an enterprise which, if 
successful, would render the State of Tennessee use- 
less to the Confederacy. On April 6, the Confede- 
rates under General Albert Sidney Johnston at- 
tacked the Federals at Shiloh and drove them back ; 
but Grant was nothing if not tenacious, and, having 
been reinforced, v/ithin twenty-four hours turned the 
tables on the enemy, whose gallant commander had 
been slain. A still more important success came to 
the Federals a few days later when Commodore Far- 
ragut, with extraordinary bravery, ran his vessels 
past the Confederate forts and took Xew Orleans, 



THE CIVIL WAR. 299 

which had no Andrew Jacksou to defend it.* Gen- 
eral llalleck, who commanded all the armies of the 
West, then took Corinth, Mississippi and Memphis, 
Tennessee. The town of Vicksburg, in the former 
State, was now practically the only obstacle to com- 
plete Federal control of the great river. It was 
deemed more important, however, to endeavonr to 
gain possession of Chattanooga and Eastern Tennes- 
see and tlms partly to cut off Virginia from the 
Gulf States. This took time, however, especially 
as General Braxton Bragg put much energy into tlie 
Confederate movements. He actually threatened 
Louisville, Kentucky, but the battle of Perryvillo 
(October 8, 1SG2) forced him back to Chattanooga. 
He ventured out again, and was repelled at the be- 
ginning of the new year after three days of terrific 
lighting around ]\[urfrecsboro, a small town not far 
from Nashville. Other repulses had been experi- 
enced by the Confederates when they attacked the 
Federal forces left at Corinth, but nearly a year was 
to elapse before Bragg would be forced to evacuate 
Chattanooga, so that the Union commanders can 
hardly be said to have followed up with any marked 
success the splendid advantages gained in the spring 
of 1862. Finally, however, Grant, after several 
failures which only brought out his dogged persis- 
tency, gained a position in the rear of Vicksburg and 
its redoubtable fortresses, and after a long siege com- 
pelled the Confederate eonnnander, Pemberton, to 
surrender (July 4, 1863). In a few weeks the 
whole of the Mississippi was clear. Texas and Ar- 

* David G. Farragut was. like Scott and Thomas, a South- 
erner. His capture of Mobile in 1864 was one of the greatest 
ex])loits in naval history. In 1866 he became the first Amer- 
ican admiral. 



300 PROGRESS OF THE r>'ITED STATES. 

kantvas ^vcro {\nv6 out off from the Confederacy; 
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee were ren- 
dered of little value to it; and the Atlantic States 
could be attacked from the AVest as well as from the 
Xorth. But we must now consider the movements in 
the East. 

The early spring of 18(52 witnessed an important 
naval combat near Xorfolk between the Virginia, 
which was the old frigate Merrimac turned into a 
floating iron house with a beak for ramming, and 
John Ericsson's new v.-ar vessel the Monitor, which 
was too far submerged and too heavily armoured to 
fear even the Viruinia, although the latter had iust 
destroyed two frigates. The two strange vessels 
fought one another for four hours; then the Virginia 
retired to jSTorfolk and her career was over. The 
other Confederate naval exploits were confined 
mainly to privateers fitted out in foreign ports. As 
the Union luivv was strengthened, these dreaded 
vessels Avere gradually disposed of, and Southern 
harbours, some of the most important of which wer(> 
taken early in the war, were effectively blockaded."'' 
Thus not only was cotton, the South's main hope and 
sinew of war, prevented from finding a nuirket 
abroad, but munitions and supplies of all kinds were 
kept out of the devoted region. Mucli privation en- 
sued, in spite of the fact that the people developed 
an inventiveness and a ca]iacity for manufacturing 
that were astonishing in view of their previous ab- 
sorption in agriculture. But neither courage nor capa- 
city could prevail against privation and bad finaiicier- 

* Tlie most f.Tinous of these privateers avhs i'le Alnbaina. 
Captain Raphael Seniiiies. Tliis vessel was built in Eiucland 
and gave rise to the " Alabama Claims" to be mentioned later. 
She was destroyed by the Kearsarge, June 19, 1864. 



THE CIVIL WAR. ;^(i[ 

ing comhinod, ami t\\o ^\)]cu(Vid victories now to be 
reooimted could only prolong' tlie struggle and give 
the Southerners the consciousness that they had 
fought as gallantly for thc'w cause as any peo[)lo in 
history. 

CJeneral jMeClellan was gIvcMi conunand of the 
great Army of the Potomac with which Mr Lincoln's 
Administration hoped to capture the Confederate 
capital before the end of 18(52. He organised and 
equipped it splendidly, and, reaching Fortress Mon- 
roe by water, began his march toward Richmond by 
moving up the Peninsula.* He was a slow movei-, 
hoM-ever, and allowed the Confederates under Joseph 
E. Johnston to ham]-)er him more than was probably 
necessary, x^evertheless, by the end of May, he was 
within ten miles of Eichmond, and the great but in- 
decisive battle of Seven Pines or Fair Oaks was 
fought on the 3 1st of the month. General Johnston 
iiaving been wounded, the command of the Confed- 
erates devolved upon General Ivobert E. Lee, who 
since his failure in West Virginia had been doing 
admirable engineering work on the coast defences of 
South Carolina and Georgia. Ke strengthened his 
army and rested nearly a month before he took the 
oifensive. Then, supported by " Stonewall " Jack- 
son, he attacked McClellan in a series of battles, be- 
ginning on June 26, which are known as the Seven 
Days' Fighting Ar(nnid l\ichmond. The result M'as 
that ]\IcClellan retreated steadily, although his troops 
drd splendid fighting, until he reached a point on the 
James River where he was safe under the fire of his 
gunboats. Lee thought that with proper support ho 
could have annihilated his op])onent : it is at least 
certain that he outgeneralled ^>rcClellan and saved 
* Between the York and James Rivers. 



302 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Richmond for the time beinp^. He also laid a firm 
foundation for his own fame and made his Army of 
Northern Virginia one of the finest fighting organisa- 
tions the world has over known. 

]\reanwhile ^Ir. Lincoln's Administration had not 
yet learned how best to raise troops and was com- 
mitting the mistake of trying one general after an- 
other, snch Avas the eagerness both of the government 
and of the people of the Xorth to win decisive vic- 
tories and bring the war to an end. Lincoln was a 
great statesman, but he was after all a civilian, aisd 
it is a serious question whether much of his man- 
agement of the war in its early stages shows genius. 
Lie did show patience, however, and a disposition to 
learn, and after Grant, Sherman and others forced 
themselves to the front as gi-eat generals, he wisely 
trusted them. General Pope, who was put in com- 
mand of the liastily organised Army of Virginia, 
was not a great general, though he had done well in 
the West. After issuing braggadocio proclamations 
he allowed himself to be flanked by Jackson and wn.s 
totally defeated by the Confederates under Lee on 
August 30, 1862, at the very Manassas that had al- 
ready witnessed one LTnion defeat. 

Lee immediately followed up his victory by in- 
vading j\raryland, judging that success would relieve 
Virginia from invasion and perhaps help to wltli- 
draw Maryland from the Union. He despatched 
Jackson to take Harpers Ferry, and, while this ex- 
ploit was being performed, was himself put in an 
awkv/ard situation through the fact that his ord)_-r 
outlining his campaign fell into McClcllan's hands 
by a pure accident. But although the latter acted 
with more than his usual energy — he was a great 
organiser but no fighter — Lee numaged to get his 



THE CIVIL WAR. 303 

scattered troops together and to fight the battle of 
Sharpsburg or Antietani oii September 17 (1862) 
with very great skill. lie was outnumbered and the 
bloody battle was after all drawn, but the superior- 
ity of Lee as a commander was made quite ap]~)arent. 
lie was forced, however, to return to Virginia and 
the campaign was really a failui-e. The drawn 
battle was magnified into a victory by the Federals 
and served Mr. Lincoln as a pretext for issuing on 
Septend>er 22 an important ]U'oclamation. This an- 
nounced that unless the Southern States returned to 
their allegiance by January 1, 18G3, the President 
would declare free all slaves in the rebellious por- 
tions of the country. IsTo Southern State yielding 
obedience, the famous Emancipation Proclamation 
duly followed. This was strictly a war measure and 
was curiously in line with a suggestion made years 
before by John Quincy Adams. Federal generals 
had previously tried the j^olicy but had been over- 
ruled by Lincoln, who, with his usual tact, had per- 
ceived that the Northern people were at first fight- 
ing for the preservation of the Union rather than for 
the abolition of slavery. Tie had gradually become 
convinced, however, that the long war could be better 
fought out on two issues than one, and the effect 
upon foreign nations of turning the contest into one 
for liberty could not be gainsaid. Of course his step 
was unconstitutional, but, all things considered, it 
v/as the act of a statesman, although it temporarily 
hurt the Republican party, the fall elections in sev- 
eral important States decidedly favouring the Dem- 
ocrats. Finally, however, its wisdom M'as acknowl- 
edged in the North, and the Thirteenth Amendment 
to the Constitution,* which became law by the end 
* See Appendix A. 



304 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of 18(55, corrected all technical defects and left the 
great Eepiiblic a free nation. 

The Soutli's first answer to the Proclamation ot 
September was the bloody battle of Frederickshnr-;- 
fought on Deceml>er lo, lSlt2, l>ee thorouiihly dv- 
feating General A. E. Bnrnside, who had super- 
seded General MeClellan. 

General Joseph Hooker was next sent against Lee 
in the spring of 1863, but was worsted in the famou-? 
battle of Chancellorsville (.May 2-?^), which cost tlio 
South the life of '' Stonewall " Jackson. Lee then 
resolved upon another invasion of the Xortli and 
moved forward with consummate skill his ragged 
but indomitable troops. A mistake on the part or' 
his famous cavalry leader, General J. E. B. Stuart, 
deprived him, however, of needed information, and 
he had to fight the trenu^ndous thv(^ days' battle of 
Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) on ground not of his 
choosing. Whether under any circumstances he 
could have won these battles of July 1, 2, and 3, 
1803, is a moot point, but it does seem that his plans 
were well laid and that his defeat was chiefiy due to 
remissness on the part of his subordinates. Even 
after Pickett's famous charge, a very effective army 
was left which would have tasked General George 
Gordon ^[eade, the opposing comnuindev, quite 
severely; but Lee's ammunition was low and he felt 
obliged to retreat, which he did in excellent order. 
Meade followed him into Virginia, but little further 
fighting was done in the East until 1864. The back- 
bone of the Confederacy had been weakened, though 
not broken, and ultinuite defeat was only a question 
of time. Perhaps a victory by Lee might have meant 
a serious if not a fatal set-back to Lincoln's Adminis- 
tration, for the recent Draft Act which compelled 



THE CIVIL \VAR. 305 

conscription by lot was very unpopular and led to 
serious riots in iS^ew York City just after the battle 
of Gettysburg. Such matters cannot be decided, 
however, and after all, conscription was working 
Avorse in the South, for not only were there com- 
plaints against it, but it was taking every effective 
man for the army and leaving merely the women, 
children and slaves — who l>ehaved admirably, thus 
giving the lie to reports of their maltreatment — to 
work the plantations from which alone supplies 
could be obtained."^ 

We must now turn for a moment to the West. 
Bragg was able to hold Chattanooga for several 
months, but Federal movements under Rosecrans ren- 
dered his position precarious in the summer of 1803 
and he evacuated the town. But on September 10th 
and 20th he surprised Rosecrans at Chickamauga 
near by and defeated him badly, the fine generalship 
of General George TT. Thomas, a Virginian who liad 
sided with the Union, alone ]ireventing a rout. Grant 
then took command, his Vicksburg campaign being 
over, and under his directions the Confederates were 
badly defeated on November 24 and 25 in spite of 
their strong positions on Missioiuiry "Ridge and Look- 
out Mountain just outside Chattanooga. Thomas, 
W. T. Sherman, and Hooker were the three subor- 
dinate generals who achieved these victories, and 
the courage of their soldiers in storming the frowning 
heights should have convinced the persons who had 
denied that ^NTorthern men could fight of the folly 
of passing rash judgments upon a whole people. 

* Much criticism was cause 1 by coriScii{)tion measures in the 
South. ]\[r. Davis beiu? harshlv assailed by Governor Jos. E. 
Brown, of Georgia. Even the Vice President, A. H. Stephens, 
stood aloof from the Administration at Richmond. 

20 



306 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Indeed nothing is more certain than that the mutual 
ignorance of the sections had a great deal to do with 
bringing on and, perhaps, with prolonging the war. 
His successes in ^Mississippi and Tennessee had 
now clearly proved that Grant was the great soldier 
for whom Lincoln had been praying; accordingly in 
March, 1804, he was made Lieutenant-General, and 
took charge of all operations, attending personally to 
the campaign in Virginia and leaving Sherman in 
charge in the South-West. The latter attacked the 
important though small town of Atlanta, forcing, 
through his superiority of numbers, a steady retreat 
of the Confederates under Joseph E. Johnston. Re- 
treating, even when done in a masterly fashion, was 
not to Southern taste, and ^[r. Davis, who seems not 
to have appreciated Johnston as Lee did, substituted 
tlie former commander for the more impetuous Hood. 
But Hood's attacks on Sherman were unavailing, 
and when he tried to draw the Xorthern general 
away from Atlanta, Sherman merely detached 
Thomas and Scliofield to follow him, and liimsolf 
destroyed the manufacturing establishments of the 
town. Then he moved through Georgia in his fa- 
mous " March to the Sea '' — an expedition which no 
opposing army rendered glorious, but which was 
grandiose enough and showed plainly how thoroughly 
exhausted the South was. Danger from Hood and 
Lee was indeed talked about, but was hardly within 
the range of possibility. Late in December Savan- 
nah was taken ; then a nortliward march was made 
M'itli the object of preventing support and suppliers 
reaching Leo, wlio was grappling witli Grant in 
Virginia. l\o danger was now to bo apprehended 
from Hood, whose army had been absolutely de- 
molished bv Thomas at Xa^hville on December 15, 



THE CIVIL WAR. 30Y 

South Carolina fell an easy prey, tlie State capital, 
( ■ohimbia, being given to the flames, whether malici- 
ously or not has never been determined.* It is cer- 
tain, however, that greater destruction of private 
property attended Sherman's marches than should 
have been the case in a war waged against com- 
manders like Lee, who repressed pillage sternly. 
Lee, who was now in command of all the Southern 
forces, was, as we shall soon see, too hard pressed 
himself to come to tlie relief of the State whose de- 
fences he had so greatly strengthened three years bo- 
fore, but he did the best he could by sending -John- 
ston to command once more against Sherman. Yet 
retreating was again in order, for it was all that 
could be done, and finally Johnston surrendered to 
Sherman near Raleigh, J^orth Carolina, on April 
26th, 1S65, seventeen days after Lee had suceumlxnl. 
Meanwhile the Army of the Potomac had opened 
its campaign of 1864 with 120,000 admirably 
equipped troops, to whom Lee could oppose only 
half as many ragged veterans. In his eagerness to 
move on Richmond, Grant crossed the Rapidan River 
on May 4 and plunged into a tangled bit of country 
known as the Wilderness, where Lee had him at a 
disadvantage. Terrible fighting took place on May 
r)th and 6th and Grant withdrew to Spottsylvania 
Court House. Leo forestalled his intentions and 
barred his line of march, with the result that four 
days of continuous fighting followed. Grant now 
aiming, as McClellan had done before, to force his 

* The Northern view is that the fire was caused by Cdii- 
federate buvninjs: of cotton ; the Southern tliat it was wan- 
tonly started. The evidenco is very conflictino;. but the burn- 
ing of Cliambersburg (Penn.) a few montlis eai-lier by order 
of the Confederate General Early ought to be remembered in 
this connection. 



308 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

way out and reach the James River. The Federal 
assaults upon the Confederate intrenehments were 
heroic and frequent, but entailed tremendous loss. 
Grant proposed, however, to hammer away if it took 
" all summer," and as he had troops to squander, 
while Lee was steadily growing weaker, his methods 
may perhaps be commended from the point of view 
of politics. Turn v/here he would, however, Lee 
got in his wayand battle after battle had to be fought 
until even the bravest of the Federal subordinates 
sickened at the carnage and Grant changed his plana. 
He finally joined Butler on the James and settled 
down to a siege of Petersburg by the middle of 
June. This town once taken, Richmond would in- 
evitably fall, but nearly a year was to elapse before 
either consummation could be secured. Lee, suffer- 
ing privations with his troops, was the same alert, 
undaunted commander behind trenches that he had 
been on many an open field, and the weaker his 
cause grew, the more sublime became liis heroism 
and his patience. He would willingly have aban- 
doned Richmond to its fate, but Mr. Davis clung to 
his capital, and the government of the South had 
long since centred in its unyielding President. 
Perhaps it was just as well that the great war was 
brouglit to an end slowly but at the same time 
effectually, for time was thus given to both sides for 
reflection, and when peace came there was no ques- 
tion that it was a final settlement of the issues that 
had divided the nation. 

The end came in the spring of 1865.* Late in 

* A " Pea.ee Conference " was held at Hampton Roads on 
Feb. 3, 1865, between Lincoln and Seward on the one hand, 
and A. H. Stephens and two commissioners on tlie other. 
Reunion could not be agreed upon, and Lincoln, of course, 



THE CIVIL WAR. 309 

March Lee took the offensive for a moment, but in 
vain. On April 2 the weakly manned Confederate 
lines were broken. The next daj Richmond sur- 
rendered, Mr. Davis having made his escape only to 
be captured later. Lee retreated to Amelia Court 
House, where he expected supplies, but failed to 
find them; then with famished and continually 
waning forces he pressed on to A]ipomattox Court 
House, Grant following his now doomed prey. On 
the 7tli negotiations were entered into which vrerc 
completed on the 9th at Appomattox in an interview 
between the two great commanders that is one of the 
most impressive in history. Grant gave most liberal 
terms, allowing the Confederate privates to keep 
their horses for the " spring ploughing," and the 
greatest war of modern times practically closed M'ith 
this act of grace. Lee followed his soldiers into 
private life and devoted his remaining years — he 
died in 1870 — to the endeavour to build up his 
wasted section and to restore the feeling of loyalty 
to the Union ; Grant was destined to till the highest 
office in the gift of the nation, but not to add to the 
laurels he had won as an indomitable fighter and 
generous man. The two generals when they parted 
at Appomattox really represented democracy as op- 
posed to aristocracy, the new regime as opposed to 
the old. As a man and a general Lee was superior 
to his conqueror; he was the perfect flower of a 
civilisation. One cannot think of Grant as a perfect 
flowei", but then there is compensation in the fact 
that he was the natural product of a soil not 
artificially enriched with unpleasant fertilisers. For 
after all democracy is better for the world at large 

stood out for this. Hence the conference was a failure, but 
it was a sign that peace was at hand. 



310 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and the masses, even if aristocracy does produce 
hero and tliere a majestic and spotless character 
like Lee. Yet Grant was not democracy's greatest 
product. It is the patient, kindly President at 
Washington, who guided the Union with a steady 
hand through its manifold dangers, who never felt 
a trace of enmity either toward the foes who opposed 
his Administration from without or toward the 
captious critics who hampered it from within — 
it is Abraham Lincoln that best deserves to be set 
over against Robert E. Lee. Some persons may con- 
tinue to prefer, in their capacity as individuals, the 
latter hero ; but this preference need not preclude 
their recognising the fact that the civilisation for 
which Lincoln and Grant laboured was far better 
adapted to tlie needs of the world than that for 
which Lee exerted his noble military genius. 

But in pursuing in cursory fashion the chief cam- 
paigns of this marvellous war, which in the num- 
bers engaged, in the use made of cavalry, iron-clads, 
railroads, telegraph lines, and hospital corps begins 
a new epoch in military history, we have left 
almost out of sight the course of political events. 
Lack of space will prevent more than a mere refer- 
ence to the Administration of Mv. Davis, and that 
of Mr. Lincoln must be treated almost as briefly. 
It was the intention of the South to frame a govern- 
ment of more limited powers than that of the old 
Union, but Avar is a hard taskmaster, and Mr. Davis, 
Avith no sinister intentions, became more or less a 
dictator. Congressmen tried to exercise some check 
on affairs but failed, and since men w'ere more and 
more needed in the field, the character of the legis- 
lative body deteriorated. The variou>^ Cabinet 
oflicers did their best, but as the blockade tightened 



THE CIVIL WAR. 311 

around the coast, it became impossible to equip tho 
troops properly, and later on it Avas difficult even 
to p;et soldiers. Inability to send out crops also 
rendered both public and private financiering ex- 
tremely difficult. The paper money of the govern- 
ment, as well as its bonds, gradually became practi- 
cally worthless, and it was soon necessary to seize 
crops for the support of the armies. This measure 
and the conscription that included both youth and 
age finally aroused resistance and made desertion a 
frequent otfence. The Administration was freely 
and harshly criticised and many loyal souls longed 
for peace. But the intensity of the Southern char- 
acter sustained the authorities and the armies until 
the very end, and it may be fairly said that the South 
did not yield until she was exhausted. Some writers 
have claimed that submission should have come 
earlier, especially as it was impossible to feed proper- 
ly the Union prisoners whom Mr. Lincoln's govern- 
ment refused to receive in exchange for Con- 
federates in order that the fighting power of tho 
South might be thus reduced; but it is obvious that 
such criticism does not take account of fundamental 
qualities of Inunan nature. The South is all tho 
more valuable to the Union of the present day be- 
cause she fought to a finish in 1805. 

The Congress at Washington was naturally bettor 
able to legislate efi'ectively than that at Ivichmoud, 
though it, too, did not a little useless talking. It 
passed a heavy tariff act in 1SG2 and levied internal 
duties on all sorts of manufactures, besides taxing 
monopolies and private incomes. Tt gave the Presi- 
dent liberal powers with regard to the suspension of 
the right of habeas corpus, and thus laid the founda- 
tion for not unwarranted complaints. It gave great 



312 PROGRESS OF THE U^'1TED STATES. 

assistance both in lands and in money to the pro- 
moters of the much- needed railway to the Paeitio 
Coast. It also passed in ISGo an important act estab- 
lishing a national bank system on the !N^ew York 
model, and substituted for it the next year an act still 
in force. As banks organised under the act -svere re- 
quired to deposit with the Treasury national bonds 
to the value of one-third their capital, on mIucIi 
bonds they could issue notes to an amount not be- 
yond ninety per cent, of the par value of the bonds, 
the government succeeded both in raising money 
and in improving the currency. Yet after all it 
seems clear that the financial management of the 
■war, especially -with regard to the large issues oL' 
legal tender paper money, was not so much better 
than that of the AVar of 1812 as might have been 
expected of a progressive nation. 

Faction naturally assailed Lincoln both within 
and without Congress, the most serious disturbance 
being connected v\'ith the case of Mr. Clement L. 
Vallandigham, a Democratic Congressman from 
Ohio, who was as radical in his States-rights pro- 
clivities as Mr. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania 
was in his advocacy of extreme measures against the 
South. After leaving Congress in 1SG3, Mr. Vallan- 
digham made such violent speeches in Ohio that 
General Burnside, commanding the Department of 
the Ohio, ordered his arrest. He was tried by 
court-martial and sentenced to close conlinement. 
Lincoln changed the sentence to banishment across 
the Southern lines, Vallandigham soon removing to 
Canada and returning to Ohio after the war. His 
trial caused great excitement and was sufficiently 
arbitrary to furnish grounds for criticism; yet it is 
obviously idle to expect that a great war will be con- 



THE CIVIL WAR. 313 

ducted ■^'itliout occasional violations of constitution- 
al propriety and even of justice. 

The year ISGJ: was a presidential year, and tlic 
Xortli and West thus liad to bear the strain of an 
election as well as that of the Mar. There was no 
question among prudent men that Mr. Lincoln should 
be re-elected, but some malcontents nominated Gen- 
eral Fremont, Avho afterwards withdrew, and the 
Democrats, denouncing the war as a failure, put up 
General McClcllan, whom many people, with partial 
injustice, held accountable for the comparative want 
of success for the first two years. Lincoln carried 
all save three States, and his policy of moderation 
thus stood fairly vindicated. 

But there was to be no second term for him. On 
April 1-1, 1S65, ten days after his second inaugura- 
tion and five days after Lee's surrender, the great 
President was shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington 
by au ardent pro-Southern partisan, John Wilkes 
Booth, an actor. The crazy tragedian, who lost his 
life in trying to escape, was the author of the greatest 
natioual tragedy ever enacted in America, for Lin- 
coln was killed just at the time his great brain and 
heart were most needed — just at the time when he, 
and he alone, could have dealt properly with the 
South and saved the devoted section years of misery. 
Yet Booth is not responsible for all the evils that 
followed his terrible crime. Xot a little respon- 
sibility belongs to the people, vrho had acquiesced 
in the choice of Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a 
Union Democrat, for Vice-President. The conven- 
tion that had nominated Lincoln for a second term 
had consisted of Union men of varying political 
creeds, and Johnson had been added to the ticket 
for much the same reasons as had previously de- 



314 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

termined the choice of Tyler. The result will be 
seen in due time, but we must here again call at- 
tention to the fact that if a nation will not exercise 
due care in its choice of so important an officer as 
the Vice-President, it has only itself to thank when 
it finds itself committed to incompetent or bad hands. 
But after all, whether through their good fortune 
or through the vigour native to a democracy or 
through both, the American jDeople had fared re- 
markably well since they had been plunged into 
their great Civil War. Thanks to a wise President, 
faithful administrators, skilful generals, and brave 
soldiers, they had passed through an ordeal such as 
few nations could have stood, and had yet pre- 
served their liberties and the bounds of their Re- 
public intact. Their government became stronger, 
but it still remained a popular one. Not far from 
one million men were lost to the entire country, 
the loss affecting the South more seriously from the 
point of view of quality, since substitutes were not 
procurable as at the North toward the close of the 
struggle. The debt of the Union amounted to 
nearly $2,000,000,000, but this M^as probably not 
one-fifth of the total cost of the WiU'. In the North, 
however, industry had been protected and pro- 
moted ; in the South the economic foundations of 
society had been swept away and the whole people 
had to begin life anew. Yet whatever the sacrifice, 
it was better that the war should have come and 
gone, since slavery might not have been got rid of 
through any less heroic means. The Southerner com- 
plained, indeed, that local liberty disappeared along 
with slavery, but this complaint was seemingly not 
well founded. If the American people should ever 
lose their liberties, it Avill be because they are not 



THE CIVIL WAR. 315 

capable of grappling with economic and social 
problems that have emerged since the Civil War; 
it will not be because they gave their government 
proper stabilitj^ during and after that great con- 
test. In fact their safe emergence from that con- 
test seems the best of auguries that they will eventu- 
ally overcome all present difficulties and perils and 
secure for their institutions as much permanence as 
finite and fallible men can safely expect. 



PART THREE. 

THE EKA OF INDUSTRIALISM. 



CHAPTER XYllI. 

KECONSTKUCTION. 

The chief problem that lay before the people of 
the United States in the spring of 1865 was not Avhat 
to do with a victorious army of over a million men 
— for the troops were rapidly disbanded and were 
absorbed into the body of citizens ; it was not how 
to make up the money lost — for business was flour- 
ishing in the North, and Southern men were seizing 
every opportunity to go to work; it was rather to 
determine the political standing of the conquered 
States and of the blacks. Politics had done much 
to bring on the war; now it was to increase the evil 
effects of the struggle. 

Mr. Lincoln by 1863 had more or less adopted a 
moderate and sensible plan of reorganising the States 
that had been taken from the Confederacy. The 
provisions of his proclamation of amnesty had been 
liberal, and he had made it easy to recognise new 
governments in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennes- 
see, for he acted on the assumption that not States 
but individuals were in rebellion. But Congress 
did not act in accordance with him and threw out 
316 



RECONSTRUCTION. T] 1 7 

the electoral votes of the two States last named 
(1865). Lincoln, with the people behind him, 
would probably have managed Congress; perhaps a 
Republican successor might have done it; but a 
Democrat, especially when he happened to be An- 
drew Johnson, could not do it, even on Lincoln's 
lines. 

Johnson, who was about fifty-seven years old at 
his accession, si^rang from much the same stock as 
Lincoln, but had scarcely learned to read and write 
before he reached manhood. Then his shrewdness, 
integrity and personal power pushed him upward, 
in the State of Andrew Jackson, until he became a 
United States Senator. His fidelity to the ITnion 
and American hap-hazard ways of filling office did 
the rest. But now as President in place of Lin- 
coln he had a task before him that for its successful 
performance required the possession of a tact which 
neither nature nor training had given him. At first 
he was at liberty to act unhampered, for Congress 
did not meet until December, 1865. A wiser man 
would probably have called an extra session in spito 
of the prejudice against them, would have ex- 
pounded the necessity of using the better portion of 
the Southern whites to start the new State govern- 
ments off, and would at least have given the Rej^ubli- 
cans no chance to urge that a Democrat was trying 
to reap political advantages for his party by acting 
precipitately on his own initiative.* 

Be this as it may, Johnson, who before he canif^ 
under the influence of Seward seemed inclined to 
a truculent policy, soon put forward an amnesty 

* Yet JohnsoH seems to liave acted with the advice of liis 
Cabinet, and to have reconstructed t)ie States as though it 
were unfinished business left by Lincoln. 



318 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

proclamation much like Lincoln's, and allowed the 
voters who could qualify under it to hold conven- 
tions, form constitutions recognising the death 
of slavery, and organise governments. In this way 
all the Southern States, save Texas, were ready with 
Senators and Representatives for the first session 
of the Thirty-ninth Congress. Eleven of these 
States had also through their legislatures ratified 
the Thirteenth Amendment. The State govern- 
ments were ultimately rejected, yet the Amendment 
was not resubmitted ! * 

But the new Southern governments had made the 
natural hut unfortunate mistake of passing laws to 
control black labourers and to prevent their becom- 
ing vagrants. The main intention of the law- 
makers was probably to keep society from being in- 
verted ; knowing the negro race they knew that full 
social and political equality with the whites Avas an 
impossibility if an Anglo-Saxon civilisation was to 
be preserved. But such intentions, when coupled 
Avith enactments both foolish and unjust, w^ere easily 
construed into attempts to deprive the negro of rights 
that bad just been dearly purchased for him by the 
Xorth. " The Southern white is still recalcitrant," 
said the Republican politician, " and the only w-ay 
to secure the freedman in his privileges is to give 
him the suffrage so that he can defend himself." f 

* " If they were not States, or were States out of the Union, 
their consent to a change iu the fundamental law of the Union 
would have been nugatory, and Congress in asking it com- 
mitted a political absurdity." Johnson's Third Annual 
Message. 

f That some of the restrictions put upon the negroes were 
totally unjustifiable can hardly be denied. The distracted 
condition of the wliites must, liowever, be considered, as well 
as the general character of the Southern people, before a rooted 
hostility to the freedmen can be posited. 



RECONSTRUCTION. 319 

We can see now that this was an absurd proposi- 
tion, but Northern theorists like Mr. Sumner, who 
had no practical knowledge of the situation in the 
South, doubtless enunciated it in all sincerity. The 
Southern whites, with General Lee at their head, 
recognised their defeat and the death of the old order 
of things ; but while then, as always, the negro's best 
friends, and while in time they would doubtless have 
been willing enough to give him civic rights, they 
saw that political and social rights were simply out 
of the question, ]\Iany 2:)eople in the JSTorth saw this 
also, yet the Southern men had acted too defiantly 
and rashly, and there was a political complication 
that was destined to work mischief. Southern States 
controlled by whites were sure to go Democratic, 
but Republicans, having saved the Union, now in- 
evitably adopted the motto of their enemies : " To 
the victors belong the spoils." It was easy, of course, 
to put forward the higher moral principle that the 
negro should be protected in his freedom, and doubt- 
less the people of the ISTorth and West supported the 
Eepublicans on this principle; but it is safe to as- 
sert, that consciously or unconsciously, the political 
leaders of the time let their desire for party su- 
premacy blind them to the social, political and eco- 
nomic horrors of the regime they were soon to inflict 
upon the Southern people. It is only fair to add 
that most historians seem to think that the action of 
the South in passing laws restrictive of the negro's 
economic freedom and the tactless course of Presi- 
dent Johnson, sh.ortly to be described, were the chief 
reasons for Congressional bungling, but it may be 
pertinent to ask whether false steps on the part of 
a distracted section or the recklessness of one man 
would have been met by foolish legislation if the 



3-20 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

legislators had not been partisans. It has also been 

contended that Congress in rejecting the State govern- 
ments founded under Johnson's auspices, and in un- 
dertaking itself the task of reconstructing the South, 
was merely choosing the less of two evils. This is .^ 
]X">int on which no settled verdict can be reached as 
yet ; but it does seem tlie height of rashness on the 
part of a legislative body to reject goverumeius al- 
ready organised rather than to persevere in the task 
of improving them.* It seems also that less sus- 
picion toward men who had lately proved tliemsolves 
to be honourable and brave foes vrould have K^en 
creditable to a victorious party. But unfortunately 
a party means too often a body of partisans, and 
wisdom and sympathetic confidence do not go hand 
in hand with partisanship. We should always en- 
deavour to avoid passing harsh judgments, but it is 
surely diihcult to account thoroughlv for the mon- 
strous system of government forced tipon the South 
throughout the Reconstruction period — a system the 
evil elfects of which have not fully disappeared after 
the lapse of about thirty years — unless one |X">sits 
that its inception was the result of a lack of wisdom 
rarely found save in conjunction with uncontrolled 
political partisanship. To represent the horrors of 
Keconstruction as the legitimate outcome of the 
false relations between blacks and whites created by 
the institution of slavery is doubtless an easy solu- 
tion of a grave historical problem, yet it hardly 
seems to be a philosophical solution. But our criti- 

* Congress did attempt the tnskof improving them when it 
submitted to them the 14th Amendment, but that Amendmenr 
was plainlv an entering wedge for full negro sutTrage. and its 
rejection was not a sufRoient excuse for the formation of 
military sj\tn\pie3. 



RECONSTRUCTION. 321 

cism has forestalled matters; it is time to inquire 
what Congress actually did. 

As Americans rarely take a political step with- 
out having some bit of legality on which to base it, 
we need not be surprised to learn that various 
theories were held as to the exact status of tlie 
Southern States. The most radical theory finally 
prevailed, to wit, that Federal lawr^ liad been sus- 
pended with regard to them, and would continue so 
suspended until Congress declared the contrary. 
In other words Congress adopted a theory of for- 
feited rights which practically made the States con- 
quered provinces, because it was the most con- 
venient theory by which the negro could be secured 
in his rights and on which a Republican party could 
be built up in the South. There was a two-third'^ 
majority in both Houses, and, if this could be man- 
aged, the President need not be greatly feared. 
Passion being the best of party whips, and ignor- 
ance being a very good second, we are not surprised 
to learn that even the most drastic and complicated 
of the measures proposed were carried over John- 
son's vetoes; but we must also give to Thaddeus 
Stevens of Pennsylvania and the other Radical 
leaders whatever credit is due for strenuous and 
shrewd party management. We need not, however, 
think with some historians that such management is 
a proof of high political wisdom. 

The first step taken was the appointment of a 
large joint committee to consider the condition of the 
revolted States. Then a joint resolution was passed 
which kept Southern Senators and Representatives 
out of Congress until that body should declare the 
seceded States fully readmitted, ^dilitarv govern- 
ment was also to continue until Congress willed 
21 



323 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

otherwise. The previously established " Freed- 
man's Bureau/' which had for its object the gen- 
eral assistance of the destitute ex-slaves, was also 
continued with extended functions, but Johnson's 
veto was not in this instance overridden. That im- 
petuous Executive was not content, however, with ex- 
ercising his legitimate control over the Radical politi- 
cians. He abused Congress roundly in a public 
speech and thus set the waverers against him, while 
more deeply exasperating the leaders, who replied 
by passing over his veto a " Civil Rights Bill " 
which made any limitation of the civil rights of 
American citizens — ^who comprised all persons born 
in the United States and not subject to a foreign 
j)Ower — a crime of which Federal courts alone were 
to take cognisance. Johnson declared this bill un- 
constitutional, and was apparently justified in so 
doing, although the Supreme Court upheld the 
measure. 

Congress next proposed the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution, agreement with which was 
to be a condition precedent to the admission of any 
Southern State. This iVmendment defined who were 
to be citizens of the United States, declared all such 
persons to be citizens of the State in which they 
resided, and guarded their privileges from infringe- 
ment by the States. It further provided in sub- 
stance that any State denying or abridging the right 
of any male citizen of the age of twenty-one to vote 
in the Federal and State elections should be de- 
prived of its representation in Congress to an ex- 
tent proportional to the ratio between the dis- 
franchised class and the whole number of male citi- 
zens of twenty-one years of age. Disability to hold 
office was also denounced against leading supporters 



RECONSTRUCTION. 323 

of the Confederacy, but this could be removed by a 
two-thirds vote of Congress. The public debt of tiie 
Union was not to be made a subject of dispute, but 
claims for loss of slaves or for aid given the re- 
bellion were to be invalid. 

Of this long Amendment the second clause rela- 
tive to disfranchisement proved to be most obnox- 
ious. When slavery existed the Southern States re- 
ceived a representation for three-fifths of their 
slaves — a fact which might well have staggered the 
judges who in the Dred Scott ease reduced the 
negroes to the level of horses — now they would be 
entitled to full representation, and if the Republi- 
cans could not make the negro vote effective, the 
Democrats would be the gainers. But to secure full 
and free suffrage to the negro was as impossible 
as to change his skin. Troops might secure it for 
him, but a republic cannot be supported by troops 
without degenerating into a despotism. This was 
seen after a while and military government was aban- 
doned, w^hereupon the whites secured control of the 
State governments and obtained in Congress repre- 
sentation proportional to population. But in most 
instances the blacks could be kept out of office only 
by force or fraud ; yet, having once secured full 
representation, no State was willing to give it up 
for the sake of disfranchising the negro by a prop- 
erty or educational qualification, which would bo 
legal but w^ould also disfranchise certain white men. 
Thus the Bepublicans brought it to pass that the 
negro was cheated out of his vote, that the Demo- 
crats gained representation in Congress to which 
they were not entitled, and that the voting popula- 
tion of a wliole section was debauched by indulgence 
in fraudulent practices on which a premium had 



324 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

been set by the Constitution itself. It would be 
hard to discover a worse piece of legislation, judged 
b}- its results, in the whole range of history ; but it 
is still operant, although some States like Missis- 
sippi have evaded it by adopting educational quali- 
fications indelinite in application yet quite effective 
as against the negro."" 

Before Congress adjourned it admitted Tennessee 
and received the report of its own Reconstruction 
Committee, which was quite radical in character. 
The campaign of 1S6G that followed was fought out 
practically between Radical Republicans and the 
President, whose policy was conservative but whose 
speeches were just the reverse. The Radicals won by 
a large majority, especially as the Southern States 
were rejecting the Fourteenth Amendment — not 
wisely, perhaps, under the circumstances, but with 
at least a clear conception of its dangers. 

Fortified by the approval of their constituents, 
who as usual were not specially qualified to judge 
of the wisdom of the proposed treatment of the 
South, the Radical Republicans carried out their 
programme with a high hand. They arranged that 
the Fortieth Congress should assemble on ]\Iarcli 4, 
1867, instead of meeting regularly in December, so 
that Johnson might take no advantage of the long 
recess. This measure was almost if not quite revo- 
lutionary, as it treated the President as though he 
were a tyrant and not a co-ordinate part of the gov- 
ernment. Then an equally revolutionary Tenure of 
Office Act was passed which provided that the Presi- 
dent could not remove officials without the eon- 

* It is of course true that negro suffrage was not directly 
forced on theSoutli by this Amendment, but it was clear that 
such suffrage was the goal of the Radical party. 



RECONSTRUCTION. 325 

sent of the Senate. xVs the Senate had to confirm 
appointments to office, this bill would, if its pro- 
visions were continuonsly carried out, make the 
Upper House of Congress the real Executive of the 
country ; it is therefore no wonder that Johnson de- 
nounced it bitterly as unconstitutional. But more 
important than these and other similar measures 
was the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867, which, 
as subsequently supplemented, determined the for- 
tunes of the South for nearly ten years. The States 
still out of the Union * were grouped into five dis- 
tricts, each under the control of a Federal general, 
who was to superintend the enrolment of citizens 
under the terms of the Reconstruction Act of j\larcli 
2. Such citizens were to vote for delegates for 
State conventions ; by the latter bodies constitutions 
satisfactory with regard to the franchise were to be 
framed ; these were to bo submitted to the original 
voters, and, if ratified, were to be transmitted for 
the approval of Congress. When that approval had 
been obtained, the ratification of the Fourteenth 
Amendment would finish the process of Reconstruc- 
tion and the State would be received into the Union. 
It is needless to comment on this doctrinaire scheme, 
for it can be sufficiently judged by its fruits; but 
Ave may at least question the value of constitutional 
amendments obtained by compulsion. 

The saturnalia that ensued can be better imagined 
than described ; the horrors of Avar paled before the 
disgusting outrages of Reconstruction, and it is to 
be hoped that never again Avill any considerable body 
of Anglo-Saxons be treated as the Southern Avhites 

* The total number of States h.-id been increased b}' (he prem- 
ntuie admission of Nevada in 1864 and by the more normal 
admission of Nebraska in 18G7. 



S-2{\ PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

were. Yet it would be wrong to blame the people 
of the 2sorth and West for their part in the matter. 
With resjioct to personal vindictiveness and mean 
tyranny the seqnelne of the Civil War may fairly 
be said to reiieet the very greatest credit upon the 
loyal citizens of the Union. A few Sonthern leaders 
like Mr. Davis were mistreated, although trials for 
treason were finally dropped; some injustice may 
have been done in the case of a few execntions that 
followed Lincoln's assassination : bitt on the whole 
the conqtiering Xorth was better disposed toward the 
conquered South than tlie victors in any other civil 
war have ever been. This fact is one of the chief 
moral glories of American history and should bo in- 
sisted upon. The injury done by the Xorth to the 
South in the Tveconstruction period was due almost 
entirely to ignorance and partisan ]iassiou. Any 
repetition of such injury by civilised people, now 
that the South has furnished such a warning ex- 
ample, would be, hov,-ever, an outrage almost past 
pardon. 

The best Southern whites being unable to vote for 
delegates to the constitutional conventions, these 
bodies were controlled by the shrewder and more 
corrupt negroes and by white adventurers from the 
Xorth, who had hurriedly packed their car])et-bags 
and hastened to the new gold-fields. These " carjiet- 
baggers," some of whom were good men, soon ruled 
the situation in spite of the honest elTorts of the 
generals in eonnnand. Tn about a year Xorth and 
South Carolina, Florida. Alabama, Arkansas, and 
Louisiana were fully admitted to the ITnion. Georgia 
too had Ivepreseutatives ir. Congress, btit as she had 
declared negroes ineligible to office, her Semitors 
Avere not seated and she was not fully reconstructed 



RECONSTRUCTION. 327 

until 1871.* lu Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas 
Reconstruction was delayed on account of the fact 
that some of the provisions of the new constitutions 
offended moderate Ecpublicans in the States, with 
whom the Democrats joined forces. Fortunately 
General Grant had now succeeded Johnson and was 
in favour of getting the three States back into the 
Union with as little friction as possible. The con- 
stitutions Avere submitted to popular vote, and in 
Virginia and Mississippi voters were allowed to vote 
separately on the obnoxious clauses, which disfran- 
chised too many persons. The Conservatives won in 
Virginia, the Radicals in the two other States; and 
after much discussion all three were restored to the 
Union by the spring of 1870, their consent to the 
Fifteenth x\mendment, which denied the right of tho 
United States or any State to deprive any citizen of 
the power of voting " on account of race, colour, or 
previous condition of servitude," having been pre- 
viously required. This Amendment of course sup- 
plemented the Fourteenth and removed the anomaly 
caused by the fact that some loyal States had not 
conferred the franchise on the negro. 

But it was not the difficulty they experienced in 
getting back into the Union that formed the chief 
burden of the woes of the Southern States — 
it was the misconduct of the Radical govern- 
ment in each State. In a few, like Virginia 
and Georgia, the whites were sufficiently nu- 
merous to outvote the negroes and get the man- 
agement of affairs in their own hands. They 
thus incurred the suspicion of Congress, especially 
as they supported the Democratic party, whicli from 

* Several of the reconstructed States sent negroes to 
Congress. 



328 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

its attitude during the war was in disfavour at the 
Xorth; but that was better than the local misgovern- 
meut under which States like South Carolina and 
Louisiana groaned. In these States the negroes and 
their " carpet-bag " friends piled up taxes and 
looted the treasury in a scandalous fashion. The 
bills for public printing fcr example were farcically 
enormous. The debt of South Carolina increased 
fourfold in five years; that of the South at large 
amounted to nearly $300,000,000. But the inso- 
lence of the misguided negroes was harder to bear 
than their antics as legislators, and naturally led 
to violence, especially on the part of the lower classes 
of the whites. Organised resistance to negro rule 
folloAved as a matter of course; the so-called Ku 
Klux Klan spreading from Tennessee to other States 
and committing outrages which naturall}' increased 
the partisan fervour of the ISTorth. It is impossible 
at present to tell how far these illegal practices of 
the whites were exaggerated. In some places the 
negroes were merely intimidated ; in others they 
were undoubtedly murdered, sometimes, as in New 
Orleans in the summer of 1806, in such numbers as 
to amount to a massacre. Some of the restrictions 
placed upon the race the year before, such as heavy 
licences for their engaging in legitimate trades, had 
been revolting enough ; but now their anomalous 
condition had been rendered all the more horrible 
by the indiscretion of their friends in Congress. 

At this late day it would be worse than useless to 
pass harsh judgments upon any of the actors in this 
bloody farce. The freedmen were little to blame in 
view of their ignorance and the suddenness of their 
transition from slavery to freedom. The " carpet- 
baggers " and " scalawags," as native Southerners 



RECONSTRUCTION. 329 

who acted with the negroes were styled, were in 
many cases unprincipled men such as always come 
to the surface in revolutionary epochs. Their tyr- 
anny over the better Avhites, which extended to con- 
liscation of property, personal violence, and some- 
times to murder, should, however, be set, by any fair 
historian, over against the outrages of the Ku Klux 
Klan. As for President Johnson's share of blame, 
it may at least bo said that too much has been 
cliarged against him by Northern writers like Mr. 
Blaine.* That he wt;s vulgar and irascible and need- 
lessly exasperating cannot be denied, but these facts 
do not excuse Congress for not having given his plans 
of Reconstruction a fair trial. Xor is the j^recipi- 
tancy of Congress to be excused by casting a large 
share of blame upon the Southern whites. Many of 
their actions, such as the passage of laws infringing 
the personal liberties of the blacks, much of their 
extravagant speaking and writing, cannot be ex- 
cused, but m.ay surely be condoned "when their con- 
dition after four years of warfare is duly considered. 
As for the Radical leaders in Congress, they too may 
claim condonation for their actions, but only on the 
ground that the Civil War had alTected them likewise 
in a disastrous manner. They had tasted the fruits 
of power; they had grown immoderate and masterful 
in their advocacy of principles originally noble. 
Personal and partisan considerations entered into 
their management of affairs. They would trust 
neither the Executive nor the Jiuliciary, although the 
latter power was already beginning to show how the 
obnoxious legislation of the South might be done 
away with. They made the fatal mistake of de- 

* See his Ttoenty Years of Congress, first half of the sec- 
ond volume. 



330 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

veloping a doctriuaire system of government and 
employing force to uphold it. They created not 
merely the military regime but umcli of the neces- 
sity for it. They did this as honest partisans, and, 
as Ave have already seen, they reaped their due re- 
ward in the weakening of their political power; but 
at the same time they injured a section of their 
country almost irretrievably. And after all many 
of their mistakes as well as many of the mistakes 
made by historians in treating this tangled period 
may be set down to a failure to perceive that the 
great uprising of the South was not in the least 
treasonable in character, that it vras due to the fact 
that two peoples of different institutions and habits 
had been living under a form of government which 
they interpreted in different lights. The idea of 
punition was never far absent from the minds of 
the Radicals ; but when men are piuiished for actions 
which they do not believe to be positively immoral, 
the consequences both to punishers and to punished 
are likely to be disastrous. 

Meanwhile the President of the United States was 
being baited more cruellv than anv ex-slave. John- 
son was as radical in his obstinacy as the Republi- 
cans of the type of Stevens and General B. F. But- 
ler of Massachusetts Avere in their doctrinaire theo- 
ries. It is not surprising therefore that the thought 
of impeachment should have come early to his op- 
ponents, or that so extreme a measure should have 
failed twice before it could be carried into effect. 
In August, 1SG7, however, when Congress had ad- 
journed, Johnson had suspended Edwin M. Stan- 
ton, the Secretary of War whom he had kept over 
from Lincoln's Cabinet and whose resignation he had 
vainly endeavoured to secure. The Senate ou reas- 



RECONSTRUCTION. 331 

sembling refused to sanction the action, as Stanton 
was persona grata and Johnson was not. The Presi- 
dent had never believed the Tenure of Office Act to 
be constitutional, so he determined to test it by re- 
moving Stanton once more, doubtless believing that 
a judicial process would be resorted to for the pur- 
pose of testing the law. Such would have been the 
course pursued in normal times, but Stanton ap- 
pealed to the House of Ivepresentatives, which late 
in Februarv, 1868, resolved to impeach the Presi- 
dent. The trial began before the Senate early in 
^larch, and ended in an acquittal after about two 
months and a half. Johnson's escape was narrow, 
however, for if one of the seven Republicans who 
voted with the twelve Democrats against the eleventh 
count had voted with the thirty-five Republicans for 
the same, the necessary two-thirds majority would 
have been obtained. Voting on other counts after 
a ten days' recess brought the same result and illus- 
trated the diificulty of securing an impeachment in 
a republic. On the whole the trial is now conceded 
to have been a mistake. Congress had pushed its 
power to a limit which could not be overpassed with- 
out making it the real tyrant it had accused John- 
son of trying to be. It had shown a partisanship in 
its. prosecution that alarmed moderate men, and be- 
sides, a certain clause of the Tenure of Office Act had 
been so loosely worded that it was by no means clear 
that the removal of Stanton was not legitimate under 
it. That officer, in consequence of the issue of the 
impeachment, resigned and Johnson had comparative 
peace for the rest of his term.* 

* For an interesting discussion of this trial, which unfortu- 
nately did not settle certain irnnorfant constitutional points, 
see Prof. Wm. A. Dunning's Essays on the Civil War and 
Reconstruction. New York, 1898. 



332 PROGRESS OF THE UXITED STATES. 

Ill dealing- ^vitll local matters we liave left un- 
noticed the department of foreign atfairs. M-bich oc- 
cupied considerably tbe attention of this unfortunate 
Administration. Tbe action of Trance, Great 
Britain, and Spain in sending troops to Mexico in 
1801-62 in order to punish that Eepublic for of- 
fences against their citizens, Avbich was followed by 
the establishment of an empire under the auspices of 
the French, with Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, 
at its head, had drawn a cautious protest from Sec- 
retary Seward while the Civil "War was going on. 
When the war was over the demand for the with- 
drawal of the French troops became peremptory, all 
Americans feeling that the stand of Monroe against 
the extension of foreign iutluence in America must 
be maintained untlinchingly, Xapoleon III., al- 
though impractical enough to espouse a scheme of 
American empire less promising even than the one 
his great kinsman had abandoned, was not enough 
of a dreamer to ignore the threats of a nation that 
had just shown so signally its military prowess ; 
he accordingly withdrew his troops and Maximilian 
was captured, tried, and shot. 

Another action of Seward's, more important in 
many respects, v.as the extinction of Russia's hold 
upon the Xorth American continent by the pur- 
chase of Alaska in 1807.'"^ The price paid for over 
five hundred thousand square miles of practically 
unsettled territory was $7,200,000. Seward's pur- 
chase naturally caused slight excitement at the time 
and xllaska was little in the public mind until tbe 
recent discovery of gold in the Klondike. Its bound- 

* The offer to sell caine from Russia. There was some un 
willingness in the House of Representatives to vote the pur- 
chase monev. 



RECONSTRUCTION. 0,^3 

aries adjoining those of Canada, a country with 
which war will be impossible should the ties of race 
have their due influence, Alaska may be considered 
to be a legitimate acquisition which reflects credit 
on Seward's forosi^'ht; but bad statesmanship miglit 
easily neutralise the good eft'ects of his action. 

At the time he made his purchase, however, re- 
lations with Great Britain were considerably strained. 
The favour shown the South by tJie British upper 
classes and the " Trent " aft'air * had stimulatotl 
American indignation, which was increas.cd by the 
negligence exhibited by the British government with 
regard to the fitting out of Confederate privateers, 
especially the famous Alabanu^. Fortunately diffi- 
culties were adjusted under Grant's first Administra- 
tion by the Treaty of Washington (May 8, 1871), 
which dealt with certain boundary and fishery 
troubles and provided for the arbitration of the 
Alabama Claims. The next year the arlnirators, 
meeting at Geneva, awarded the United States $15,- 
500,000 damages. 

Returning now to local afl'airs we find that John- 
son's success in his impeachment trial brought him 
no return of political favour. His own party, the 
Democratic, M-hile maintaining that his principles 
as to Reconstruction were sound, was too wise to 
saddle itself with such an unpopular candidate in 
the presidential campaign of 1868,f and chose in- 
stead Horatio Seymour, a prominent politician of 
Xew York. The Republicans naturally nominated 
General Grant, whom Lincoln's death had left the 

* See 07ite, Chap. XVII., p. 298. 

f Johnson went out of politics for a while, but in 1873 was 
elected to the Senate from Tennessee. He died shortly after- 
wards. 



334 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

idol of the people. He could not have been defeated 
under any circumstances, especially when the Dem- 
ocratic platform was unsound with regard to the 
nation's credit, and when the i^orth had not awak- 
ened to the folly of the radical legislation the Re- 
publican Congressmen had inflicted on the South. 
He received 214 electoral votes to Seymour's 80, the 
votes of many of the Southern States being cast for 
])im because the negroes were in control of the po- 
litical machinery. Yet his popular majority in some 
of the loyal States was not great, and the success of 
his party in the South was more apparent than real. 



THE RESTORATION OF UNITY. 335 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE RESTORATION OF UNITY. 

General Grant when he entered npon his duties 
as President on March 4, 1869, was forty-seven years 
old and had had no training whatsoever as a states- 
man. But neither had Zachary Taylor had such 
training, yet the latter in one short year gave evi- 
dence of possessing more clear-sightedness and force 
than either Webster or Clay displayed in the great 
crisis of 1850. Another groat crisis was upon the 
country ; might not Grant do as well or better ? 

He did not do so well ; but although we are forced 
to deny him greatness as a statesman, we need not 
deny him greatness as a man. j^o one could safely 
have inferred greatness from his youth and early 
manhood, but the pertinacity and skill that finally 
made him the foremost Union general were only 
the most striking features of a character that was 
at bottom singularly manly and true. That he 
was possessed of a keen, clear mind is apparent to 
every reader of his great Memoirs. Why, then, 
he should not have made a good statesman and so 
furnished democracy with an even greater type than 
Lincoln is hard to tell. Perhaps a certain slovenli- 
ness of character kept him from thoroughly under- 
standing men and measures, just as a certain over- 
delicacy of character would have probably prevented 
his great opponent. General Lee, had he been called 
from military to political life. Be this as it may, 



336 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the fact remains that Grant's Administrations were 
not all that he and his true friends desired. 

It was a specially difficult time, however, in which 
to govern well. In the South the evil effects of the 
Congressional policy of Reconstruction were making 
themselves visible in all directions. In the Xorth 
the evil effects of the spirit of speculation, which 
had been fostered by the war and the tariff, as well 
as by lavish grants for the building of railroads, 
were equally visible. Grant suffered from both sets 
of evils, but more from the latter, with which a 
blunt honest soldier was ill-prepared to cope. 

Early in his first term he was brought into un- 
fortunate contact with two notorious ]*^ew York 
financiers, Jay Gould and James (" Jim ") Fisk. 
and accepted their hospitality without suspecting 
that they intended to use him. Their object was to 
prevent the Treasury from selling gold, in which 
metal there had been great speculation OAving to 
the fluctuations of its value in terms of the paper 
currency introduced during war times. Grant seems 
to have been taken in by them, but to have had no 
sinister interest in the series of shady transactions 
which led to the panic and riots of September 24th, 
1869,— :N"ew York's " Black Friday." A later scan- 
dal affecting Coug'ress more than the Executive was 
connected with the " Credit Mobilier," a corpora- 
tion chartered by Pennsylvania to manage the af- 
fairs of the Union Pacific Eailway which, along 
with the Central Pacific, had been helped by large 
Congressional grants.* In 1873 a committee of in- 

*The former of these companies bepnn work at Omaha, 
Nebraska ; the latter at San Francisco. The lines met in L tah 
in May, 1869. Besides being useful from a militarj' point of 
view, "the through route from New York to San Francisco 



THE RESTORATION OF UNITY. 337 

vestigation showed that at least two memhers of the 
House had been discreditahly connected with the 
unsavoury affairs of the corporation, while several 
other politicians were left under suspicion. Three 
years later (1876) the climax was reached when \V. 
W. Belknap; Secretary of War, was impeached for 
accepting bribes, and resigned to escape conviction. 
Shortly before, tlie trial of General O. E. ]]abeock, 
Grant's private secretary, for alleged complicity in 
frauds on the government practised by Western dis- 
tillers and allied Federal oiiicials, had induced many 
of the President's enemies to hope that even he would 
he proved guilty of corrupt practices. 

But the hero of Vicksburg was not dishonest even 
if he was the most indiscreet of Presidents. Like 
Andrew Jackson he almost turned friendship fi'om 
a virtue to a vice. He reposed blind confidence in 
men who betrayed him and the nation; he had mil- 
itary favourites as subordinates wdien he should have 
had trained public servants. Fraud and corru])tion 
were rampant in Washington during both his Ad- 
ministrations, and w^ere also only too evident in local 
scandals such as those connected with the famous 
Tweed Ping in Xew York City. The fever of specu- 
lation and losses connected with the great fires of 
Chicago (1871) and Boston (1872) led to the panic 
of 1873, one of the most disastrous in history. Al- 
together the country was in a deplorable state, and 
the tendency to make Grant a scapegoat w^as irre- 
sistible. Like Van Buren before him, he was ac- 
cused of living in vulgar luxury. Vices of which he 
was totally innocent were attributed to him. He 
was accused of scheming for the establishment of a 

added to the political solidarity of the country and opened up 
the Far West to rapid settlement. 
22 



338 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

military despotism, yet he was in reality one of the 
most simple-hearted American citizens ever lifted to 
high office by good fortnne and his own energy. At 
times he bitterly regretted his elevation, and those to 
whom his fame is dear have regretted it also. It 
would have been better, perhaps, had he remained 
merely the General in charge of the Army, with only 
routine office work to do, in the discharge of which 
he might have smoked his countless strong cigars in 
peace. Then we should have been spared the spec- 
tacle of an old friend like Sherman being forced to 
leave Washington and tlio Commanding General's 
proper official quarters in disgust because low poli- 
ticians had the President's ear on every occasion. 
Yet after all, while it seems sad to behold a man like 
Grant in such a plight, it must be remembered that 
his Administrations have a strong side which vrill bo 
sho^m presently, and that in their worst features 
they but typify the confused and corrupt state of the 
country at the time. I^o nation can go through a 
great civil war without breaking down morally to a 
greater or less extent. Sensual debauchery such as 
characterised the court of Charles II. did not make 
its appearance in America, although there was a 
marked growth of extravagant luxury in the ISTorth ; 
but commercial debauchery flourislied to a distress- 
ing degree and, as we have seen, political debauchery 
was domiciled in the South. In the midst of this 
seething chaos a simple soldier was called upon to 
assimie the duties of the presidency; what wonder 
that he was not entirely equal to tlie task ? 

The mention of the " Tweed Ring " reminds us 
that a brief sketch of the career of its founder will 
throw light not only upon the corruption character- 
istic of the period we are treating, but also upon 



THE RESTORATION OF UNITY. 339 

that curious product of American political life, the 
modern " Boss." As has been previously remarked, 
Xew York and Pennsylvania had long been notorious 
for political partisanship and corruption and had 
produced very astute political managers. When 
loyalty to party in spite of its corruptions was 
erected into a virtue, when possession of the spoils 
of office made politics a lucrative trade, when the de- 
velopment of nominating conventions and of " pri- 
mary " elections within a party threw the choice of 
candidates for office into the hands of a compara- 
tively small number of intriguing managers, it be- 
came evident that an astute man could easily make 
himself a political dictator. In i^ew York City the 
large ignorant foreign vote and the existence of a 
long established political organisation, the so-called 
Tanmiany Society, rendered the evolution of the 
" Boss " peculiarly natural and easy. Tammany 
was a Democratic institution, and its managers have 
cleverly induced decent men to vote with them by 
playing upon their desire to preserve party unity in 
order to exert influence on national afj'airs. Until 
municipal politics can be divorced from national and 
until the masses are treated sj^mpathetically, it will 
be impossible permanently to reform the politics of 
Xew York or any other great American city, for 
the " Boss system " is still flourishing nearly thirty 
years after the downfall of Tweed, to whom we may 
now devote a few v/ords. 

William Marcj Tv/eed was born in Xew York — - 
the " Boss," })y the way, is often foreign-born — in 
1823, the son of a chair-maker, which trade he him- 
self followed for a time. TFe became well known 
and popular in connection with a local fire-company 
and was made alderman bv the age of thirty. 



340 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Shortly after he served as Congressman and then 
held several municipal offices, his common-school 
education and his knowledge of men being all the 
equipment demanded by his constituents. In 1870 
he was appointed Commissioner of the Department 
of Public Works of l^ew York City — an office which 
gave full scope for the exercise of his sinister genius. 
Associating with himself other prominent officials 
and politicians, he organised his " ring " and appro- 
priated vast sums of the public money for ostensibly 
public purposes. Of course much of this money 
went immediately into the pockets of Tweed and 
his associates, and queer stories are told of the bar- 
baric luxury for which some of it was expended — 
for example^ for the purchase of diamond suspender 
buttons ! Detection ensued and public denunciation, 
especially through the agency of The New YorJi' 
Times, which set an example of patriotic journal- 
ism that a few newspapers have ever since followed. 
Tweed was arrested in October, 1871, and managed 
to furnish bail for $1,000,000. A few days later 
he was actually elected to the State Senate, so strong 
was his hold on the people. After the failure of one 
suit against him he was convicted early in 1873 and 
sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment and a fine. 
In 1875 he was released on a technicality, but having 
been again sued and required to give a heavier bail 
than he could secure, he was thrown into jail. He 
managed to escape to Cuba and Spain, but was 
brought back and died in prison in 1878. Subse- 
quent '^ Bosses " have as a rule avoided the clutches 
of the lavv^, but they find their prototype in Tweed, 
whose partial expiation of his crimes makes him, 
indeed, a less offensive figure than some of his sue- 



THE RESTORATION OF UNITY. 341 

cessors. We must now turn to a different although 
a not much pleasanter topic. 

We have already seen, in the preceding chapter, 
how the last Southern States were added to the Union 
in the early part of Grant's first term, and how 
creditable his attitude was toward them. lie under- 
stood the Southern whites better than most Congress- 
men did, but in his soldierly way he was determined 
to have the laws obeyed and political equality given 
to the negro. But to secure this consummation was 
beyond his or any other man's power. Election 
frauds continued to be committed and Ku-Klux out- 
rages increased. To withdraw the troops from the 
South seemed therefore out of the question to the 
Republicans, although the Democrats were not slow 
to point out that it was inconsistent with American 
principles to declare States theoretically recon- 
structed and yet practically to assert, by the presence 
of a military force at the polls, that they could not 
be trusted to use their privileges with discretion. 
The same objection applied to the coercive legisla- 
tion of 1870-1871 known as " Force Bills "—legis- 
lation threatened also about twenty years later but 
nov/ fortunately abandoned as unwise.* Yet Con- 
gress and the President persevered f and quieter 
times ensued, not probably on account of govern- 
mental interference so much as because the South 
perceived the folly of violence and began to recover 
from the anarchical effects of the war. It is only 
fair to Congress to add that it modified its drastic 

* Tlie chief objects of this legislation were the suppression of 
Ku-Klux outrages and the securing- of tlie negro's right of 
suffrage. Tlie writ of habeas corjjus could be suspended, and 
both the Federal courts and the army could be employed. 

f A number of persons were sent to prison under the pro- 
visions of the enforcement laws. 



342 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

legislation as soon as order seemed to be in a fair 
way of being established, and that a general amnesty 
bill (1872) relieved the political disabilities of all 
save an extreme class of so-called rebels. Indeed 
within less than ten years only two or three Southern- 
ers were personally obnoxious to the ^NTorth — one of 
these being Mr. Davis, who had to bear the brunt of 
displeasure because of his eminent and representa- 
tive position. The experiments Congress had made 
with the Constitution in respect to Reconstruction 
were about this time (1873) partly upheld and 
partly rendered nugatory by the Supreme Court, 
which in the famous " Slaughter House Cases " de- 
cided that the States still possessed the right to con- 
trol in many ways the privileges of their citizens. 
Thus, for example, it became impossible to force the 
Southern States to admit to the same schools the 
children of whites and blacks. 

But even after Ku-Klux outrages were lessened, 
election disputes still harassed the South and still 
provoked hostile criticism in the ]^orth. The situa- 
tion was worse in Louisiana than elsewhere, but was 
bad enough in other States, such as South Carolina, 
where the negroes were in a majority. Electoral 
machinery was in the hands of leading negroes and 
their Republican advisers, whether '"' Carpet-bag " 
Northerners or " Scalawag " Southerners, but the 
Avhites had their prestige as former masters and as 
present employers, and managed to keep many a 
coloured voter from the polls. The struggles were 
therefore continuous and bitter, and the creation of 
" Returning Boards " to canvass and validate election 
returns concentrated rather than dissipated partisan 
energies. Two rival boards vied with each other in 
Louisiana in 1872. Federal troops supported the 



THE RESTORATION OF UNITY. 343 

Kepublicans, but finally a division of the spoils was 
made. Grant, with great reluctance, let the troops 
interfere and in later cases refused to act. He and 
many other sensible Northern men were beginning 
to see the absurdity of treating a race question in a 
doctrinaire manner. 

Meanwhile the President had been renominated 
for a second term, not without opposition from men 
who counted themselves Republicans. His San 
Domingo policy, shortly to be described, and his 
careless appointments had alienated men like Sen- 
ator Sumner, who delivered against him a philippic 
as atrocious as the one that had drawn down the ven- 
geance of Brooks. In Missouri owing to local com- 
plications great dissatisfaction with the Republicans 
became manifest under the leadership of Carl 
Schurz, the most famous of German-American poli- 
ticians. A " Liberal Republican " movement began 
in this State and spread rapidly, with the result 
that Horace Greeley was nominated in answer to the 
campaign cry — " Anything to beat Grant." The 
Democrats, seeing the hopelessness of trying to elect 
any candidate of their own, gave their support to 
Greeley, while small " Labour " and " Prohibition- 
ist " parties ran tickets of their own. Grant, how- 
ever, was elected by a very large majority, the coun- 
try rightly preferring him with all his faults to his 
eccentric competitor, who was a combination of great 
editor, public speaker, and simple-hearted farmer, 
with absolutely no qualifications as a statesman. 
But Grant did not win without being subjected to 
the horrors of a presidential campaign of the worst 
type, in which his enemies magnified his every fault 
and minimised his heroic services. In spite of his 
self-contained nature he showed how deeply he had 



34^ PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

been hurt by referring to bis vilifiers in bis second 
inaugural; but the historian, while regretting that 
a hero should have been so ill-treated, can take com- 
fort in reflecting that the great public rarely allows 
the extravagant and indecent personalities of a cam- 
paign to disturb its judgment. 

The worst scandals of Grant's regime came to a 
head during his second term,* but these have already 
been described and Ave shall do well to concern our- 
selves rather with the good features of his Adminis- 
trations. One of the best things he did was to stand 
by the friends of Civil Service Eeform who w-ere en- 
deavouring to repair the ravages of years. The Com- 
mission authorised by Congress (1871) was filled 
with good men and a system of competitive examina- 
tions for appointments was inaugurated, but Con- 
gressional politicians finally withheld the necessary 
funds. Yet Grant himself had made probably worse 
appointments than any preceding President. With 
the exception of Hamilton Fish, his excellent Sec- 
retary of State, he had a poor Cabinet, which was 
constantly changing its personnel. His predilection 
for military appointees has been already noted, and 
the most charitable critic can hardly help wishing 
that when the Tenure of Office Act was modified to 
suit the wishes of a President who was as little likely 
to relish it as Johnson, some celestial mode of con- 
trolling his appointments had been substituted for 
the obnoxious terrestrial one. 

Still more important than his services for Civil 
Service Peform were the financial measures of his 
two Administrations. He approved an act " to 

* Among them was an act (1873) raising salaries, even of 
the Congressmen passing the measure. This obnoxious feature 
was repealed. 



THE RESTORATION OF UNITY. 34^5 

strengthen the public credit" (1869), which had 
been hiu-t bj Democratic proposals to pay the gov- 
ernment's debts in paper except when coin had 
been specified. He urged refunding the enormou3 
debt in bonds bearing moderate interest, and the 
good Refunding Act of 1870 was passed accordingly. 
Customs charges and internal duties were also re- 
duced and the income tax was finally done away 
Avith, the last-named measure of retrenchment being 
probably not altogether wise. Grant was also de- 
cidedly ojDposed to inflation of the paper currency, 
vetoing a bill to this end (1874), and in favour of 
a resumption of specie payments; but it was not 
until the Republicans lost their majority in Congress 
in consequence of the effects of the Panic of 1873 
and of other causes, that legislation in this direction 
could be secured from the party. Then, in the final 
session of the Forty-third Congress, an Act for re- 
sumption was brought in by Senator John Sherman 
of Ohio and passed with great expedition. The Re- 
publicans were determined that the Democrats of the 
next Congress should not get a chance to make ef- 
fective any of those wild views about finance that 
were characteristic of a period that saw the rise of 
a " Greenback " party * affected by the craze for 
illimitable quantities of paper money and of a 
" Granger " party that thrust the class interests of 
the farmer into politics and sought to control rail- 
road freight rates. By the Sherman Act specie pay- 
ments were to be resumed on January 1st, 1879, 
and it is interesting to note tliat as Secretary of the 
Treasury under President Hayes, Mr. Sherman, a 
brother of the famous general, had an opportunity 

* So called from the appearance of the paper money cur- 
rent at the time. 



346 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

to prove his great ability as a financier by strength- 
ening the Treasury deposits in order to prepare for 
a demand for gold which did not come in consequence 
of that preparation.* 

The chief feature of Grant's management of 
foreign affairs was of course the settlement of diffi- 
culties with Great Britain by the Treaty of Washing- 
ton and the subsequent Geneva award already de- 
scribed. More characteristic of the man, however, 
was his policy with regard to the annexation of the 
Dominican Republic occupying the eastern portion 
of the Island of San Domingo. He was first ap- 
proached by the Dominican authorities, and then 
seems to have thought that the island would afford 
a refuge for Southern blacks and w^ould thus im- 
prove the condition of the race. He also had ex- 
travagant ideas of the benefit that would ensue to 
the country from the decrease in tropical imports. 
He accordingly sent his friend General Babcock to 
report on the situation, and this agent negotiated a 
treaty of annexation, apparently going beyond his 
instructions. The Senate, however, in spite of 
Grant's popularity at the time, rejected the treaty 
on June 30, 1870. The President, not discouraged, 
pressed the matter again in his next message, and 
finally Congress consented to authorise a commis- 
sion to visit the island, with the stipulation that the 
action must not be construed as binding the legisla- 
ture. Even this bare courtesy to Grant was accom- 
panied by unpleasant incidents, the chief of which 
was the famous attack upon him by Senator Sumner 
which has been mentioned already. The charges of 
personal corruption brought against the President 

♦Another financial measure of Grant's second term, the 
Coinage act of 1873, will be mentioned later. See p. 357. 



THE RESTORATION OF UNITY. 347 

by the great Senator seem to have been totally un- 
founded, but they hardly warranted the subsequent 
removal of Sumner from his long held position at 
the head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Af- 
fairs. The Commission which Grant had besought 
to make a full investigation and to report the whole 
truth completely exonerated him and advocated the 
annexation of the island ; but Congress remained in- 
exorable. Grant let the matter drop, but did not 
cease to think his policy a good one. Perhaps the 
mildest judgment that can be passed upon it is to 
say that it was at least premature and that the 
reasons on which lie relied were inconclusive. If, 
however, the present tendency toward expansion con- 
tinues, it may well happen that posterity will regard 
him as a far-seeing man. It will regard him at 
least as a fair man in view of the neutrality he ob- 
served toward Spain during the long Cuban revolu- 
tion, and as a firm one in view of his bringing Spain 
to terms for the murder of the passengers and crew 
of the Virginius (1870). 

But whatever may be said in defence of Grant's? 
character and p3licy, there were enough discredit- 
able features about his Administrations — especially 
the second — to account foi* the Democratic victory 
in 1874 and to warrant the belief that a Democratic 
President would be elected in 1876. There was not 
a little talk about a third term for Grant, but the 
unprecedented idea aroused much opposition, and he 
gave it a quietus through a letter that might have 
been more explicit. For the honour of succeeding 
him there was quite a sharp struggle between the 
Pepublican leaders, chief among whom were James 
G. Blaine of Maine, lately Speaker of the House, 
perhaps the most brilliant but not the most reliable 



348 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of recent American politicians; Senator Oliver P. 
Morton of Indiana, one of the " War Governors " 
who supported Mr. Lincoln heartily; Benjamin H. 
Bristow of Kentucky, who as Grant's Secretary of 
the Treasury had Avaged effective war against the 
men engaged in the whisky frauds ; and General 
Rutherford B. Hayes, the popular Governor of Ohio. 
Mr. Blaine was the favourite candidate, but, as so 
often happens in America, he was finally defeated 
by the less brilliant but more reliable Governor 
Hayes, to whom William A. Wheeler, a successful 
Congressman from ]SreAv York, was given as a 
running-mate. 

The Democrats met at St. Louis shortly after tlio 
Ilepublicans adjourned at Cincinnati. Only two bal- 
lots were necessary for the choice of a candidate in the 
person of Governor Samuel J. Tilden of ISTew York, 
an able politician who had effectively fought against 
the Tweed Ring and who was as honest as he was 
sagacious. He was a great lawyer and a thoroughly 
trained politician, who, if he had been given a wider 
sphere of influence, might have made an eminent 
statesman. He had the great State of Xew York 
thoroughly in hand and was in touch with the leaders 
of his party throughout the country. He was be- 
lieved to stand a good chance of carrying the entire 
South together with several Northern and Western 
States, and if any Democrat could be elected Presi- 
dent, he seemed to be the man. Governor Thomas 
A. Hendricks of Indiana was chosen as a candidate 
for the Vice-Presidency and gave strength to the 
ticket in the West. 

The campaign that followed, in which the new 
fiat money party called the " Greenback " took a 
small share, was not specially exciting iintil it be- 



THE RESTORATION OF UNITY. 349 

came clear that the election was to be a disputed one. 
Tilden carried New York, ISTew Jersey, Indiana, and 
Connecticut — if he had the " Solid South " he was a 
plain victor. But in Louisiana, Florida, and South 
Carolina complications arose. Two sets of gover- 
nors and legislators were contending for the control 
of Louisiana and South Carolina, and each Governor 
certified to the choice of presidential electors of his 
own political faith. United States troops had 
guarded manv polls and used their influence against 
the Democrats, according to the claim of the latter. 
On the other hand the Republicans charged fraud 
and intimidation, and could at least rely on the 
well-known numerical preponderance of the blacks 
as an argument against Democratic success. In 
Florida the Returning Board was charged with 
usurping functions, and here also two sets oi 
electoral certificates were forthcoming. Even in 
far away Oregon the choice of one Republican elect- 
or was in doubt on account of a technicality. 

The confusion that followed the announcement of 
this anomalous condition of affairs was naturally 
very great. The one hundredth anniversary of the 
Republic had been celebrated at Philadelphia by 
means of a large international exposition known as 
the Centennial, and a new era of peace, prosperity, 
and internal amity seemed to have been inaugurated. 
Was the healing work of a decade to be undone and 
a new civil war to be inaugurated ? Business men 
asked themselves this question, and trade naturally 
suffered. To add to the confusion there was no 
definite constitutional method of determining how 
the electoral votes should be counted — whether no 
disputed vote should be received save by the con- 
current vote of both Houses — as had been the rule 



350 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ill 1865 — or whether tlie Vice-President should 
merely declare the vote in the presence of the two 
Houses. If the first rule were followed, the Demo- 
cratic House by objecting to the returns from any 
one State could secure Mr. Tilden's election ; by the 
second rule, the acting Vice-President, a Republi- 
can, would certainly decide in favour of Mr. Hayes. 
In this dilemma, notwithstanding the fact that 
double returns from Louisiana had caused the ex- 
clusion of that State's vote in 1872, it was resolved 
to create a special Electoral Commission which 
should regulate the counting of the votes. This 
body consisted of five members chosen by the Sen- 
ate, five by the House, and five Justices of the Su- 
preme Court. Four of the Justices were named — 
two being Republicans and two Democrats, and it 
was hoped that they would choose as a fifth col- 
league a Justice more or less non-partisan. Un- 
luckily this consummation was not attainable. The 
Commission decided every question in favour of the 
Republicans by a partisan vote of eight to seven. 
The Democrats were naturally enraged, but they had 
supported the projected means of escape from the 
national dilemma — doubtless with good reason to 
hope for victory — and they now abided by the re- 
sult, especially as President Grant, who behaved 
well throughout the crisis, had taken measures to 
prevent civil disturbances, and as Mr. Tilden coun- 
selled peace. Mr. Hayes was consequently inaugu- 
rated on March 4, although the counting had not 
been finished until March 2. That the country 
should have stood the strain so well was a remark- 
able proof of the inherent stability of democratic 
government in America. 

The credit that is due the people is not, how- 



THE RESTORATION OF UNITY. 351 

ever, shared bj the politicians, although it is just 
to saj that even if an Electoral Count Bill had not 
been passed ten years later, it would probably not be 
80 difficult to get a non-partisan to-day as it was t-o 
secure one to resolve the doubtful electoral ques- 
tions raised in 1876. So far as the justice of the 
Commission's action is concerned, it is now generally 
believed that Mr. Tilden had the stronger case, but 
that it was perhaps better that Mr. Hayes was in- 
stalled, since I^orthern suspicion of the Democratic 
party was so strong that the country would have 
suffered from political confusion for a very long 
time had Mr. Tilden's claims been upheld by the 
Commission. Mr. Tilden had the popular vote in 
his favour, had carried important Northern and 
Western States, and had the right to expect that the 
precedent of dropping Louisiana in IS 72 should 
have had great weight in his behalf. On the other 
hand, his friends seem to have been injudicious in 
their use of money, and fair counts had doubtless 
not been made in the South. Yet when Mr. Hayes 
proceeded to recognise the Democratic Admin- 
istrations in the congested States, he apparently 
though not really invalidated his o-^m title and 
suggested a bargain struck between Southern and 
Xorthern leaders, however statesmanlike an action 
we must concede it to have been. On the whole 
we may conclude that justice was not done to Mr. 
Tilden, but that the South at least secured a partial 
victory in the withdrawal of Federal troops from 
the polls. The evil effects of Reconstruction were 
to continue to be felt ; the " negro problem " took 
the place of the " slave problem " ; the " Solid 
South ■' was to be an obstacle to true political 
progress, but after all the gulf that had so long 



352 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

separated the sections were rapidly filling up and 
disappearing. The Union was a fact as well as a 
name, whether one looked north or south or east or 
west. 

But twelve j-ears separated the inauguration of 
Hayes from Lee's surrender at Appomattox, yet 
how much had been accomplished within that 
period, whether for weal or woe ! The tremendous 
experiment of Iveconstruction had Ix'^en tried and 
found wanting; the financial stability of the country 
had been threatened by speculation, corruption, 
popular ignorance, yet had been firmly maintained; 
industrial development had been unprecedented, 
so that save in the South the traveller could hardly 
have inferred that a few years before the nation had 
been in the throes of the greatest of modern wars; 
the transcontinental railway had linked East and 
West with the firmest of bonds ; the groat mineral 
resources of the Far West were beginning to l>e ex- 
ploited ; cities like Chicago were growing with 
marvellous rapidity even in spite of the devastating 
flames. In short, if the Centennial Exposition stood 
for the fact that the nation had turned its first cen- 
tury, it also stood for the further fact that, whether 
in war or peace, that nation possessed the power ami 
vitality of an inexhaustible youth. Peace seemed to 
spread her banners in all directions even in the West, 
where a small Indian war with the Sioux, for the in- 
ception of which the savages were by no means en- 
tirely responsible, had led (1870) to the massacre 
of the brave Gen. George A. Custer and his entire 
command. The American's conduct toward Indian 
and negro might not be ideal, but he was at least 
faithful to his highest duty of subduing, in the in- 
terests of civilisation, every foot of his imperial 
domain. 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 353 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE FLOUNDEKING OF PARTIES. 

Since Reconstruction broke down and the South- 
ern States regained their full rights in 1877, strictl}' 
political questions have occupied public attention in 
the United States less and less, while social and 
economic questions have attained a paramount im- 
portance. Such being the case, it should not sur- 
prise us to find that the tendency to form small par- 
ties for temperance ref(u-m and other purposes has 
increased and that the two historic parties have 
floundered about, struggling vainly for an issue that 
v/ould bring them victory. That their struggle has 
been vain is quite apparent. 1870, under nor- 
mal circumstances, would have been a Democratic 
year; 1880 was a Republican; 1884 a Democratic; 
1888 a Republican; 1892 a Democratic; 185)6 a 
Republican. In other words, till Mr. jMcKinley at 
the end of the century, and the parties liave alter- 
nated regularly, no President since ]\[r. Hayes had 
two consecutive terms. The mid-term Congressional 
elections have often indicated within two years the 
dissatisfaction of the voters, and have thus limited 
the eftVctive work even of the single term Adminis- 
trations. That the election of 1000 broke the chain 
of alternate Republican and Democratic Admin- 
istrations was at least partly owing to the fact 
that a new political question in the shape of the 
33 



354 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

so-called " Imperial Policy " had been sprung and 
that the currency question was still unsettled. 

But it is equally clear that this vain floundering 
of the two dominant parties has not been accidental. 
The two-party system originated in England at tho 
end of the seventeenth century, and served its pur^ 
pose both there and in America so long as political 
questions were paramount, because these could gen- 
erally be viewed logically from one of two points 
of view. Social and economic questions can rarely 
be so viewed, and when tliey can, it is obvious that 
it is diiScult to pick out one for a chief issue in a 
campaign and to bring sufficient pressure to bear 
upon every member of a large party in order to 
carry it through. In other words, a period of eco- 
nomic and social changes such as the present offers 
a number of issues on which party men can rarely 
agree with unanimity, the result being that they bolt 
their party or else are kept within its ranks through 
mere partisan prejudice or through " log-rolling " 
and other corrupt practices. Under these circum- 
stances, it is no wonder that parties have see-sawed 
in the United States, that the number of independ- 
ent voters has grown steadily, that partisanship and 
corruption have maintained, if not increased, their 
hold, and that unsafe measures like the Free Coinage 
of Silver have been advocated by desperate leaders 
bent on securing some issue that would defeat their 
opponents. 

Signs of this decay of party government were 
visible during Grant's regime, making their appear- 
ance in fact as soon as the Radicals had done their 
work of Reconstruction. Having saved the Union 
and, as they thought, secured by legislation the polit- 
ical results of the war, the Republicans, threatened 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 355 

with disintegration, had to seek some issuo or is- 
sues that promised victory. After some years of un- 
certainty they chose the tariff and rang the changes 
on it. The Democrats, always a party in favour 
of isimplo government and consequently of moderate 
revenues, took the congenial post of an opposition 
party, although it was some years before their own 
protectionists, who were led by Samuel J. Randall 
of Pennsylvania, could be weeded out. The ups and 
downs of the tariff controversy to be presently de- 
f^cribed were due to the fact that the people natur- 
ally did not know their own mind on a subject better 
suited to expert than to popular discussion. As 
might have been expected, however, shrewd politi- 
cians confused the issue so as to gain votes. The in- 
creased revenue was spent in pensions, in vast inter- 
nal improvements ; * in short, in bribes to whole 
classes of voters — thus the task of the opposition 
party became herculean, involving as it did either the 
destruction of vested interests or willing connivance 
in established instrumentalities of corruption. It 
is almost needless to say that corruption gained more 
victories than it should have done, and that such a 
political conflict soon drove the party in opposition 
to seek an i>sue that would furnish a more effective 
means of bribing. They found it in the currency 
agitation of the past few years, to which their adver- 
saries have recently opposed the grandiose attractions 
of a policy of expansion. 

Tliis preliminary sketch of American political 

* Especially in improvements of rivers and harbours, many 
of which, or ratiier the people interested in them, could ab- 
sorb vast quantities of money. Many Presidents liave pro- 
tested against this corrupt extrava;?aiice, but their constitu- 
tional inability to veto the separate items of an apijropriation 
bill has left them almost powerless. 



356 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

conditions durino^ the past quarter of a century has 
been rendered necessary by the fact that the reader 
will be loft in a hopeless state of confusion by the 
perusal of the pages that follow unless he realises 
that it is the two-party system rather than the char- 
acter of the American people or their failure to pro- 
iiress that is responsible for the low tone of present 
])olitical conditions. The American people have not 
gone backward — they are more honest, more enter- 
prising, better educated, wealthier — in short more 
powerful as a nation than ever before in their his- 
tory, but they have not yet succeeded in adapting 
their political machinery, especially their party 
machinery, to the complexities of our modern period, 
and tliey have Houndered accordingly. Xor have 
tliey been alone in this, for if we may trust !Mr. Gold- 
win Smith and other competent students, the two- 
party system has of late been working badly in the 
country of it* birth. 

President Hayes, who was in his lifty-llfth year 
at the time of his inauguration, was not a great man 
and the virti.es he had were not fully recognised 
by the country, partly on account of his clouded title 
to the office he held ; but he made on the whole an 
excellent Executive, lie was single- and simple- 
hearted, honest, and possessed of sound intelligence. 
But he lacked the power of impressing himself upon 
the popular imagination, and after his retirement 
— ^for he did not seek re-election — liis rural pro- 
clivities became the subject of much newspaper 
merriment. The '' chicken-fancier," the man who 
through deference to his wife's prejudices would 
not have wine on his table, might have seemed out 
of place in the fashionable and new Washington, 
which had been turned into a £>"reat citv during 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 357 

Grant's regime ; but, with his luanlincss in resisting 
Congressional dictation as to appointments and his 
devotion to Civil Service Ileform, he was a good man 
to have at the head of the nation in those corrupt 
times. At any rate he gave clear proof of possessing 
political wisdom in at least one particular — in his 
choice of a sitrong Cabinet. William M. Evarts, tlio 
well-known Xew York lawyer, as Secretary of State, 
John Sherman as Secretary of the Treasury, and 
Carl Schurz as Secretary of the Interior, would not 
have been out of place in an}^ Administration. There 
was also an evidence of statesmanship and of 
freedom from sectional bias in tlie selection of a 
Southern Democrat, David M. Key of Tennessee, as 
Postmaster-General. 

Two of the chief measures of JMr. Jlayes's Admin- 
istration have been already mentioned — the removal 
of Federal troops from tlie South, Avhich naturally 
olfended Ivepublican partisans, and the llesumptiou 
of Specie Payments.* The latter measure Avas, of 
course, most creditable to the country, but it had 
been determined on before the Democrats got control 
of the Lower House, nrtr did it prove that sound eco- 
nomic ideas could be expected of politicians of either 
party. In 1873 silver, which had long been practi- 
cally out of circulation, had been demonetised, save 
for the purposes of subsidiary coinage, in accordance 
with contemporary European policy. But the mines 
of the Far Western States — to which Colorado had 
been added in 1870 — were now yielding large quan- 
tities of the inferior metal, f and a demand arose for 

* See Mr. A. D. Noyes's Thirty Years of American Finance, 
N. Y., 1894. 

t One mine wliich yielded $04.5,000 of silver ore in 1878, 
yielded $16,000,000 in 1875. See Noyes, p. 37. 



358 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the free coinage of silver dollars of 4121 grains, 
which slionld be " full legal tender for all debts pub- 
lic and private." This demand found expression in 
the "Bland Bill," named after Congressman Richard 
P. Bland of IMissouri, a gentleman who, up to his 
lamented death in the year 1899, never faltered in 
his honest advocacy of a financial policy which seems 
to most students of econo^nics to be both belated and 
mischievous. Financial distress following the panic 
of 1873; low prices in terms of gold, especially as 
these affected the agricultural classes; the idea that 
to pay off bonds in gold would oppress the taxpayer 
and enrich the capitalist — these were the chief 
causes of the agitation for cheap money which was 
a natural complement of the craze for fiat money 
that was contemporaneously giving impetus to the 
" Greenback " party. The whole movement was also 
related to the financial disorder occasioned by the 
large issues of legal tender paper as a war-meas- 
ure — an unconstitutional experiment so far as 
anterior debts were concerned according to the Su- 
preme Court in Hepburn vs. GrisAvold, but consti- 
tutional according to the same tribunal when its 
personnel had been changed. What with reversals 
of judicial decisions, speculations in gold, frantic 
haste to grow rich on the part of all classes, Whisky 
King and other frauds, it is no wonder that simple- 
minded people who knew nothing of economics 
should have listened to Congressional oracles and 
imagined that a crime had been committed when sil- 
ver was demonetised. IsTor is it any wonder that 
the same public has not yet been educated in the 
matter. 

But free coinage of silver was not risked in 1878 
any more than it was to be in 1896. The Bland 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 359 

Bill became in the Senate, chiefly through the tin- 
kering of Kepublicans under the lead of William 
B. Allison of Iowa, the Bland-Allison Bill and re- 
quired the Secretary of the Treasury to buy month- 
ly not less than two nor more than four million 
dollars' worth of silver and to coin it into dollars. 
This unwise measure was. passed by large majorities. 
President Hayes then showed his courage by veto- 
ing the bill on sound economic grounds, declaring 
that if the country was to be benefited by a silver 
coinage this could only be through the issue of 
silver dollars of full value which would " defraud 
no man." Congress immediately passed the bill 
over the veto, and it remained law until 1890. 
Meanwhile Providence was guarding a people who 
would not guard themselves. The success of the re- 
sumption legislation was made secure by the great 
liarvest of 1879, which occurred contemporaneously 
with a notable failure of European crops. 

In foreign affairs the most important action of 
Mr. Hayes's Administration consisted in paying an 
award to the British government made by the Halifax 
Fishery Commission, which sat in 1877 under terms 
of an article in the Treaty of Washington (1871). 
We need not detail the troubles that have arisen 
between Canada and the United States relative 
to the question of the fisheries, but we should note 
that an unedifying controversy had originated con- 
cerning the personnel of the Commission, and that 
the United States considered the award of $5,500,- 
000 ridiculously unfair. Considerable discussion 
arose in Congress, but Mr. Hayes's request for the 
requisite appropriation and for reliance on the discre- 
tion of the Executive was finally complied with. 
Mr. Evarts then argued the point with Lord Salis- 



3G0 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

burv, and, after stating the American position in a 
strong and dignified way, ordered the award to be 
paid. 

In estimating tlie strengtli of Mr. Hayes's Admin- 
istration one must take into account the fact that the 
Forty-fifth Congress was Democratic in the Lower 
House and the Forty-sixth in both Houses. Yet 
the President was very courageous in his vetoes 
and was strong enough to prevent the passage of 
an act to restrict Chinese immigration, which, he 
thought, should not be allowed to abrogate, without 
notice, the existing treaty of 1858.* He had need 
of all his firmness however. In February, 1879, 
the Democratic House tacked a " rider " to the Army 
Appropriation Bill in order to prevent the possible 
use of troops at the polls. This and other bills 
similarly loaded down failed to pass the Senate, 
whereupon Mr. Hayes called an extra session. The 
new Congress being entirely Democratic, the same 
use of riders was resorted to; the general object 
being to sweep away the laws that had so irritatdl 
the South a decade before. The President took ex- 
ception to such methods of forcing legislation, and 
Congress could not go over his veto. Finally after 
other vetoes certain appropriations were made, but 
officers connected with the Judiciary were forced to 
wait until the next session for their salaries. What- 
ever one may think about the })ropriety of removing 
the objectionable legislation, one can hardly praise 
the course taken by the Democrats and can heartily 
admire the firmness of ]\[r. Hayes. 

This controversy over the Army Appropriation 
Bill fortunately took place after the great strike of 

* A treaty which would allow restriction was obtained in 

1879-81. 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 361 

ISTT,"* iu wliicli employees of most of the large 
railroads were engaged. Fierce riots occurred at 
Baltimore and Pittsburg (Pennsylvania), being es- 
pecially serious at the latter place. The President, 
when requested by the Governors of the threatened 
States, sent out Federal troops in July, and the 
rioters yielded peaceably. An immense amount of 
damage to property, especially by incendiarism, was 
done during the period of commotion, and similar 
disturbances were continued for some years. Penn- 
sylvania had previously struo-gled against something 
worse than riots — against organised murdering and 
pillaging at the hands of a secret society known as 
the " Molly Z\IcGuires." The members of this order 
were desperate miners who hilled superintendents 
and set fire to corporation property. For several years 
they terrorised whole districts and even rendered 
railway trayel unsafe, but finally in 1875 they were 
brought to justice, along with influential political 
accomplices, chiefly through clever detective work. 
Their outrages were a noteworthy sjinptom of the 
wretched condition of the country — of the piled up 
wealth of corporations, the flourishing of corruption 
in every department of public life, the indifference 
to the rights of labour or in fact to anything that did 
not sort with lago's injunction — " Put money in 
thy purse." Industrial conditions in America to- 
day might be improved, but at least considerable 
progress in tlie right direction seems to have been 
made since the seventies. And even in the midst 
of the turmoils just described patriotic citizens 
might have claimed that great enterprises like the 

* Yet even at this time owing to the remissness of the last 
Congress of the Grant regime the army was left for a short 
time without pay. 



362 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

deepening of the lower Mississippi Eiver by means 
of the jetties of Ciipt. James B, Eads (1879) Avere 
a convincing proof of the nation's real advance. 

In the summer of 18S0 the rival parties met in 
conventions to determine their presidential candi- 
dates. The Republicans were much divided as to 
men, and it was only after the campaign was well 
on that the tariff developed as a leading issue. Gen- 
eral Grant, who had returned from his remarkable 
tour around the world, during which he was accorded 
practically sovereign honours, was urged for a third 
term by several leading politicians and quite a body 
of voters. Opposition to any man's having what 
Washington had declined naturally made itself 
strongly felt, and the scandals of Grant's regime 
were once more rehearsed. Besides, there were sev- 
eral leaders like Blaine and Sherman and Senator 
Edmunds of Vermont who were warmly supported 
by their friends. The main fight was between 
Blaine and Grant, the latter finding his chief sup- 
porter in Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, 
Blaine's determined opponent. The session of the 
Convention at Chicago was a long and exciting one. 
Grant led from the first, but he could not gain, 
and on the thirty-sixth ballot the Blaine and Sher- 
man delegates united on General James A. Garfield 
of Ohio, who received 309 votes to Grant's 306. 
Cher-ter A. Arthur of I^Tew York, a politician who 
had been removed from office by President TTayes 
for undue partisanship,* was chosen for Vice- 

* In 1870. There was consirlprable controversy as to the 
propriety of this removnl. b\it Hayes's strnffKles for decent 
civil service, in face of opposititMi from both pai'ties. deserve 
the heartiest commendation, as do also his wise and humane 
reconmiendations with regard to the policy to be pursued 
toward the Indians. 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 363 

Presidpiit. The Ueinocrats meeting at Cincinnati 
— the Western to\vns now depriving Baltimore of its 
prestige as the (Convention Cit}- — had less diflicuHy 
in securing a ticket, for it was quite obvious that 
the great commercial prosperity of the past year 
would give the party in power a victory, and leading 
Democriitic statesmen did not wish to contest for 
the privilege of being defeated. Mr. Tilden not 
desiring to be renominated, the choice lay between 
General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania 
and Senator Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware. Han- 
cock easily carried the day, and Mr. William H. 
English of Indiana completed the ticket. 

Of the two nominees General Hancock, Mdio had 
gained a splendid reputation as a fighter, especially 
at Gettysburg, was probably the more popular man, 
l)ut was little of a politician and made himself rather 
ridiculous by the famous statement that the tariff 
was only a local issue. General Garfield, on the 
other hand, was a man who had "before the Avar" 
risen from driving the mules of a canal boat to being 
the President of a small Ohio college. Then he had 
fouglit finely in the war, had entered the Lower 
House of Congress, and had finally just been elected 
Senator. It was a typical American career and 
a good one, much above the average, in fact, with 
regard to culture, and smirched only by indiscre- 
tion, rather than guilt, in connection with the Credit 
Mobilier scandal. Yet he did not win his cam- 
paign without being charged not only with his rela- 
tions with this gigantic fraud, but also Avith having 
sympathised with the introduction of Chinese cheap 
labour. The latter charge was made in the so- 
called " Morey Letter," which was promptly proved 
to be a forgery. The Electoral vote finally stood — 



364 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Garfield and Arthur, 214; Hancock and English, 
155 — the latter ticket winning few votes outside 
of the " Solid South," which was now destined 
to be a constant quantity in politics and included 
not merely the old Confederacy but every State 
that had had slaves at the time of the war. The 
South was solidified by race prejudice ; the Re- 
publican vote in some States seems to have been 
solidified by the use of money. 

The Republican victory was in part due to the fact 
that Senator Conkling had got the better of his bitter 
disappointment and had taken the stump for Gar- 
field, carrying General Grant along with him. Be- 
fore the new Administration Avas fairly begun, how- 
ever, the same Senator had done a good deal to dis- 
turb the painfully acquired party unity and had 
given clear proof of the fact that personal influence 
is as great a factor in a democratic republic as under 
any other form of government, if indeed it be not 
a greater factor. He had proved also in his owii 
person that such an influence need not be, in fact, 
is not generally, of a very high order. Conkling 
was a brilliant orator — one of the most remarkable, 
if report can be trusted, that America has ever pro- 
duced, but he was also a most vindictive and a shal- 
low-minded man. He was capable, too, of over- 
reaching himself, as will soon be shown. 

General Garfield determined that he would have 
Mr. Blaine for his Secretary of State, regardless 
of the fact that such a choice would be offensive 
to Mr. Conkling. Then he offered the Secretary- 
ship of the Treasury to a ISTew York man, as he had 
promised, but not Mr. Conkling's nominee, and, on 
failing to secure his first choice, gave the post to 
William Windom, a not very sound financier from 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 305 

Minnesota. 'New York, which, according to Conk- 
ling, had been saved by him for Garfield, received 
only the Postmaster-Generalship, which was given to 
Mr. Thomas L. James, a most competent olHcial. Ou 
the news of these intended appointments Mr. ( V)nk- 
ling assailed General Garfield in his li<)((>l with 
most vituperative language. IMatters Ixx'amo worso 
when the new President gave an important New York 
post to a local enemy of Conkling's, in spite of tho 
fact that it had become an unwritten law that Sen- 
ators should control all such appointments. Conk- 
ling and his felh)w Senator, Thomas C. Piatt, at once 
resigned, expecting to be innuediately re-elected by 
the New York legislature; but they were disap- 
pointed, their faction, known as the " Stalwarts/' 
being outvoted by the adherents of the Administra- 
tion, known as the " llalf-Breeds." IMeanwhile Conk- 
ling had resisted all appeals on behalf of jtarty unity, 
had denounced Garfield in a speech said to have been 
a model of vituperation, and had published a letter 
which at least proved that the latter was not a model 
civil service reformer. Tlie whole aft'air sliowej 
that Conkling was not above acting like a spoilt 
child, and he would doubtless be remembered with 
disdain were it not for his brilliant oratorical gift'? 
and for his sad death occasioned by exposure in the 
"blizzard" of 1SS8. Tt is needless to add that 
liis colleague Mr. Piatt, who by his subservience 
earned the sobri([uet of " Me-too Piatt," regained 
his hold upon politics, became the Ilepublican 
"■ Boss " of New York, and is now in possession of 
his former seat in the Senate. 

The details of this factional dispute have been 
given because they illustrate the lowering effect 
of the spoils system up»m American politics — under 



366 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

what other system would a Senator have dared to 
berate a President to his face ? — and because they 
lead up to one of the most pathetic tragedies in 
American history. On July 2, 1881, General Gar- 
field was shot at the railway station in Washington 
by a disappointed office-seeker named Charles J. 
Guiteau. For weeks the President lay in agony, 
and after medical skill had been exhausted, he died 
on September 19th, mourned by the civilised world.'" 
The assassin was subjected to a long trial, and wa^ 
finally convicted and executed in spite of the pica 
of insanity. There seems to be little doubt that he 
was really responsible for his act, but disappointed 
ambition and political fanaticism suggested the 
crime, and the public rage against him, which took 
the form of attempts upon his life, might with jus- 
tice have been directed in part against the corrupt 
political conditions of the time. 

As had been the case with Lincoln, Garfield's sad 
death made him a " martyr," and has rendered it 
difiicult to estimate what success he would have 
had as an administrator, had he lived. Fortunately 
the parallel with Lincoln ceases when we turn to ex- 
amine the career of the Vice-President who took up 
the succession. General Chester A. Arthur's ante- 
cedents, politically speaking, had been not altogether 
desirable, and his selection as Vice-President had 
been determined by normal hap-hazard principles ; 
but he was a gentleman and on his elevation proved 
to be not a little of a statesman. His career illus- 
trates, therefore, both the good luck of the Republic 
and the power of democracy to shape the tools it 
needs. His succession illustrated also defects in 

* He lacked exactly two months of being fifty years old. 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 367 

the organic law, for it was not and is not certain 
whether, in case of a President's " inability " to per- 
form his functions, the Vice-President should at 
once take his place or do as Arthur did, allow the 
existing Cabinet to manage affairs. Then again it 
was questionable what would happen sliould Mr. 
Arthur die * prior to the next meeting of Congress, 
for no President pro tern, of the Senate had been 
chosen and no Speaker of the House could be elected 
until Congress met — these two officers being entitled 
to the succession according to a law of 1792. Yet it 
cannot be doubted that even if the nation had found 
itself without a head, no revolution, save a purelj- 
technical one, would have occurred. The latest ex- 
Speaker or some other functionary would have taken 
temporary charge of affairs and democracy would 
again have been justified of its adherents, but not 
of its notion that the Constitution of the United 
States is a perfect instrument. President Arthur 
pointed out to the Forty-seventh Congress the neces- 
sity of providing some better law of succession ; but 
although the matter was discussed, it was not until 
January, 1886, that it was determined that members 
of the Cabinet should succeed the Vice-President 
in the order of the seniority of their respective de- 
partments. Under the new law therefore the Sec- 
retary of State would be President should both Presi- 
dent and Vice-President die during an Administra- 
tion, and the Secretary of the Treasury would bo 
next in succession. It is obvious that, even should 
a worse accident than that on board the Princeton 
occur, there is now little chance that the Republic 

* He was in the prime of life, however, nearly fifty-one. 
Yet he died shortly after leaving office. 



368 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

will ever be witliout a legal head, but it is equally 
obvious that Congress does even its most important 
business in a slip-shod fashion. 

That other bad feature of the government forced 
into relief bv Garfield's death — to wit, the spoils 
system — was also brought to the notice of Congress; 
by President Arthur, with the result that the bill pre- 
pared by the Civil Service Reform League and al- 
ready before the Senate through the efforts of Sen- 
ator George II. Pendleton of Oliio became law early 
in 1883, and a good Civil Service Commission was 
appointed. The work of this Commission went 
steadily forward in spite of a few reverses and of the 
antagonism of the professional politicians ; but in 
his third year (1899) President Mclvinley, by ex- 
empting numerous places from the working of the 
law, took a backward step which w^as not reas- 
suring. The cause of reform is, however, doubt- 
less bound to succeed in the end, and even now there 
is little likelihood that such corruption as was ex- 
hibited in the famous " Star Route Frauds " of 
Hayes's time — in which contractors for carrying 
the mails in the Far West joined with post oilice ofli- 
eials and other public men to make the government 
pay extortionate prices for services received — will 
ever again be so brazenly rampant in the country. 

Mr. Arthur chose a good Cabinet, but one not 
equal to that of Hayes, or perhaps to that of Gar- 
field. The Administration, however, was a success- 
ful one owing to iho absence of great foreign compli- 
cations and to the President's firmness in vetoing 
bad measures. In foreign affairs the recognition 
of the Congo Free State and participation in the 
Berlin Conference on African matters (1884) 
seemed to argue an abandonment of the home-keep- 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 3C9 

iiig policy of the government, while the claim, ad- 
vanced under Hayes and continued by his succes- 
sors, that the United States, in view of De Lesseps' 
abortive Panama Canal, could not consent to the 
control of an inter-oceanic canal by any European 
power or powers seemed to necessitate some modi- 
fications of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty,* which, 
America contended, applied only to canals in con- 
templation at the time of signing. Secretaries 
Evarts, Blaine, and Freylinghuysen, Arthur's chief 
Cabinet ofticer, made the most of their case, but the 
British government refused to consider that it had 
done anything to invalidate the Treaty or that the in- 
strument should be amended. It is indeed hard to 
see what basis the United States had for its claims 
save such as any nation has that has made a bad bar- 
gain and wishes to get out of it. Great Britain's con- 
trol of tlie Suez Canal and her large navy, which 
could easily command a Central American water- 
way, were natural American arguments, but hardly 
appealed to the other contracting party. Fortunate- 
ly the matter was dropped, but it had doubtless 
added point to the protests that had been increasing 
against the long-standing policy of neglecting the 
navy. Mr. Arthur and his Secretary of the ^avy, 
William E. Chandler, inaugurated a policy of in- 
creasing this important arm of the service, and their 
efforts, seconded by those of subsequent Adminis- 
trations, have resulted in the creation of a navy 
whose exploits have recently made the whole na- 
tion proud. But as schemes for a Xicaraguan Canal 
are still being pushed and as the Clayton-Bulwer 
Treaty still holds, it is obvious that the possession 

* See ante, II., xiii., p. 230, note. 

24 



370 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of a new uavj by the United States renders it all 
the more necessary that American dij)lomatist3 
should be in the future both cautious and honest 
in their handling of international affairs. Unfor- 
tunately, however, a tone of " Jingo " excitability 
and s^^ecial pleading, which rightly or wrongly is 
fathered primarily on Mr. Blaine, has more or 
less characterised American diplomacy of late, and 
may involve the country in grave difficulties, espe- 
cially if naval officers are not required to exercise 
more discretion than some of them seem to have 
shown of late.* 

In internal affairs President Arthur's bravest 
and most important act was his veto, in 18S2, 
of a bill restricting Chinese immigration, f Eace 
prejudice and unwillingness to compete with cheap 
labour had aroused the people of the Pacific Coast 
against the increasing number of Chinese immi- 
grants, and for several years an agitation against 
them on the one hand and the jDropertied classes on 
the other had been going on under the name of 
" Kearney ism." Dennis Kearney, whose name has 
attained such an unpleasant notoriety, was one of 
those demagogic Irishmen who have been brought 
to the front in America in considerable numbers. 
He was an aggressive speaker and had confidence 
enough in himself really to found a party, which, 
after running a short course and giving California 
a new constitution, collapsed, as such parties always 
do, along with its demagogue founder. Anti- 



* It should be noted that Arthur's Administration made spe- 
cial efforts to put the United States on a good footing with 
the South American nations. 

t Ten years later an extraordinarily strict exclusion act, 
known by the name of Mr. Geary of California, became law. 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 371 

Chinese agitation was, however, too popuhar a 
craze to be dropped by the politicians, and even 
after Arthnr's veto of the lirst bill, another was at 
once introdnced lessening from twenty to ten years 
the period of exclusion. This became law in spite 
of Chinese protests. The policy thus inaugurated 
was not in conflict with the new treaty with China 
of 1881, but was somewhat antagonistic to the doc- 
trinaire position taken by the Republicans in the 
days of Reconstruction. 

The lawlessness of " Kearneyism," which was 
a counterpart of the strikes and " Molly McGuire '' 
outrages in the East, was represented in the Middle 
West by the train robberies and other crimes com- 
mitted by the gang of vrhich Jesse James was the 
head. The assassination of James by members . of 
his gang, who had been bribed by the authorities 
of Missouri, was bitterly resented even by honest 
people in the region in which he lived. The fact is 
that lawlessness was an almost necessary concomi- 
tant of the new West at this time, just as it had been 
in Alabama and Mississippi in the forties and in 
California in the fifties. But the Eastern States 
liad grown more and more like Europe in their ideas 
of life and conduct, and hence could hardly under- 
stand Western outrages or the street fights and Ivnch- 
ings of the restless unsettled South. They under- 
stood political conditions in the latter region just as 
little, or Republicans would hardly have welcomed 
with open arms such a politician as Senator William 
!Mahone of Virginia, who had risen to power by agi- 
tating for a " readjustment " of the State debt. But 
amid all these domestic turmoils the celebration of 
the centennial of the battle of Yorktown in 1881 
and the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial 



372 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Exposition held at Xew Orleans in ISS-i showed 
how much the country had progressed, not merely 
since the Revolution, hut since the Civil War. The 
heroism of the Arctic explorers led by Lieutenant 
A. W. Greely and of their rescuers (1SS1-18S4) 
showed also that if undue commercialism had fos- 
tered corruption and lawlessness throughout the 
land, the heart of the people was still splendidly 
sound. Even Congress awoke to the necessity of re- 
pressing polygamy in Utah* (1882). 

A new presidential election was also about to il- 
lustrate this popular soundness of heart. Mr. Ar- 
thur was a candidate for re-election, but could not 
gain a firm hold on his party, in spite of or perhaps 
in consequence of the excellence of his Administra- 
tion, all things considered. The rank and file of 
the Republicans wished Blaine, the '^ plumed 
knight," as ho was ridiculously styled ; while the 
reform element in the party Avished Mr. Edmunds 
of Vermont. The reformers and the Arthur men 
could not unite and the Chicago Convention nom- 
inated Blaine and Logan as their ticket amid tre- 
mendous enthusiasm. The Vice-Presidential can- 
didate. General John A. Logan of Illinois, had been 
himself a presidential possibility for years and was 
popular, but Blaine seemed to be a tower of strength 
in spite of the charges of corruption that had been 
made against him and from which he had never 
quite freed himself. It is difficult to account for his 
popularity, but the fact remains that no American 
since Clay has. as a mere civilian, so fired the ]iopu- 

* Other important measures of tins A'^.iriini'^tration were a 
revision of the tariff ( 1S83) . a reduction of popta<re rates (1888) , 
a repeal of stamp taxes (1883), and the prohibition of the in- 
troduction of contract labourers (1885). 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 373 

lar imagiuatioii. Yet his enemies were as tlior- 
ongh-goiug as his friends, and it was soon found 
that nianj of the Reform Eepiiblicans would bolt 
the party. 

The Democrats, realising that they could hardly 
hope for a better chance of victory, determined to 
])ut forward their best man, whom they found in 
Governor G rover Cleveland of Xew York. He was 
the son of a Presbyterian clergyman, but had prac- 
tically educated and made himself, having become 
a lawyer in Buffalo (iST.Y.), and filled with success 
many local offices before he won the governorship 
by a ])henomenal majority. He was not a showy 
man, but had given evidence of remarkable honesty, 
energy and intelligence. Besides as Governor of the 
greatest State he had an excellent chance of gaining 
its large electoral vote. The Chicago Democratic 
Convention had little trouble, therefore, in giving 
him a two-thirds majority on the second ballot. For 
Vice-President Thomas A Hendricks of Indiana 
was chosen, the West being thus appealed to as well 
as the numerous voters who wished to right what 
niajiy people regarded as the " crime of '76.'' In 
the person of Cleveland, another Democratic Govern- 
or of Xew York, Tilden, would be avenged. 

The campaign that followed was marked by mucli 
excitement and by bitter partisanship. Some of 
the Reform Republicans swallowed their disappoint- 
ment and worked for Blaine as the regular party 
nominee, no Democrat being a safe candidate in 
their eyes. But the absurd charge that Cleveland's 
election would put " the South in the saddle " once 
more could r.ot blind distinguished Reformers like 
George William Curtis to the danger of supporting 
on mere party grounds men whom they believed 



374 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

to be corrupt ; hence quite a large number of influen- 
tial Kejiublicans announced their intention of voting 
for Cleveland whose integrity they trusted. The 
action of these Independents, or " Mugwumps '' ■■'" 
as they were named in derision, naturally made the 
campaign hotter. The careers of both candidates 
were subjected to close scrutiny, neither emerging 
scot-free, and the better element of the nation being 
quite disgusted. Blaine's followers stood np for him 
manfully, especially the JS^orthern clergy, who seem 
to have imagined in their innocence that a Demo- 
cratic victory in 1884 would mean the revolution 
that their prototypes of 1801 had expected from Jef- 
ferson. One divine, the Rev. Dr. Burchard of New 
York, was unfortunate enough to express their sen- 
timents in an alliterative form that gave great offence 
and probably cost Blaine votes. He seemed to think 
that " Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion " were the 
main allies of the Democratic party. 

Two R's instead of three were the main allies 
of the Democrats — to wit, the Reform Republicans. 
The election was A'ery close, and Vn'Iiou after several 
days of anxious waiting it was found that Cleveland 
had carried Xew York by only 1,119 votes, it be- 
came quite apparent that without Independent sup- 
port he could never have been elected. The elec- 
toral vote finally stood, 219 for Cleveland and 183 
for Blaine, the former's popular plurality over 
Blaine, in a vote of more than 10,000,000, being 
only 62,000. Thus the first Democratic candidate 
since Buchanan to reach the White House was one 
chosen by Independents to receive their votes. The 
spirit of partisanship had received its most serious 

* An Indian word meaning " chief " or " big man." 



THE FLOUNDERING OF PARTIES. 375 

setback since the days of Jacksorij and thenceforward 
the Independent vote was to be a serious factor in 
politics and an admirable and sure proof of the na- 
tion's real progress. 



3TG PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE TAKIFF TO THE FKONT. 

Mr. Cleveland^ who was young for his office, 
being just forty-seven, began his Administration by 
selecting a good Cabinet with Senator Thomas F. 
Bayard of Delaware as Secretary of State. The 
South was given its fair representation in the 
choice of Senator A. II. Garland of Arkansas as 
Attorney-General, and Senator L. Q. C. Lamar of 
Mississippi as Secretary of the Interior. Other 
Southerners found good posts, and the cry was raised 
that the President was not loyal to the Union, es- 
pecially after he issued an impolitic and ineffective 
order that Confederate flags held in Washington 
might be returned to tlie Southern States. The or- 
ganisation of the Union vetcrauiS known as the Grand 
Army of the Republic at once became vindictive 
critics of the Administration, particularly after the 
President showed his firmness by vetoing over one 
hundred of the private pension bills by means of 
which Congress was squandering the surplusage of 
revenue received through the tariff. Mr. Cleveland 
was made still more unpopular by his veto of the 
extravagant largess to very short term veterans and 
their indigent parents, known as the Dependent Pen- 
sion Bill (1887). lie pursued his course un- 
flinchingly, however, and thus gained the approval 
of the thoughtful men who were not averse from 




JAM1';S (1. HI. AIM'; 



THE TARIFF TO THE FRONT. 377 

relieving deserving veterans, but had no desire to 
add to the incomes of prosperous citizens or of de- 
serters or of persons who had never seen a battle- 
field. But extravagance was in the Washington ai)-, 
and all sorts of schemes, some of them speciously 
charitable, were devised for spending the nation's 
money. One of the most unnecessary of these, 
which nevertheless did not become a law, was the 
Blair Bill — so called after the New Hampshire 
Senator who fathered it — which proposed to dis- 
tribute money to certain schools in the South. 

If Mr. Cleveland's unpopularity had been due to 
his vetoes alone, it would not have been a matter of 
great consequence, but unfortunately, he managed 
to alienate the leaders of his own party by lack of 
tact, and to a certain extent lost his hold upon the 
Keformers by his final yielding to Democratic de- 
mands for " spoils." He was, of course, in a diffi- 
cult position, as his party had been out of office for 
years and could naturally claim with Jefferson that 
it Avas unfair for the political opponents of an Ad- 
ministration to hold all the offi-ces. Although the 
choice of the Independents, he was first and fore- 
most a Democratic President, and all the leaders of 
his party urged him to " turn the rascals out." If 
he could have maintained the boldness by which he 
finally forced Congress to repeal entirely the Tenure 
of Office Act, he might have proved himself a very 
great man and after all not a bad politician, for 
Americans admire strength and bravery of every sort. 
But he yielded slowly to the ]n*essure of the spoils- 
men, supplanting a very considerable number of Re- 
publican officials within three years. Extreme Be- 
formers denounced him, partisan Democrats still 
bore a grudge against him for not having given 



378 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

them all the offices at once, but the historian can only 
regard him as a man who kept his actions within 
legal bounds and believed in doing right, yet was not 
quite strong enough at first to scorn consequences. 
In his second Administration Mr. Cleveland proved 
that he was a true friend of a reformed service, but 
he undoubtedly made many mistakes with regard to 
patronage in his early years as President. He as- 
sisted local Democratic leaders whom he should 
have known to be corrupt, and there is a touch of 
poetic justice in the fact that, as we shall soon see, 
such leaders in his own State helped to compass his 
defeat in 1888. 

But although he was not an ideal Executive, it 
would be folly to maintain that Mr. Cleveland was 
not a good one. He inculcated and practised 
economy in public expenditures; he looked after the 
people's interests in the Western lands;* he con- 
ducted foreign affairs, including a revived dispute 
on the perennial subject of the Canadian fisheries, 
in a creditable manner; and he continued to aug- 
ment the navy. Of course his Cabinet, on which 
only one slight scandal rests, deserves much praise in 
all these particulars, but it is quite clear that the 
President was in fact as well as in name the head of 
the government. 

One important measure of this period has already 
been mentioned — the law providing for the succes- 
sion to the Presidency; Vice-President Hendricks 
having, like not a few of his predecessors, died in 
office (1885), Congress simply could not afford to 
dally longer wnth the matter. The Electoral Count 

* He drove cattle men from public and Indian lands on 
which they had intruded in large numbers. 



THE TARIFF TO THE FRONT. 3Y9 

Bill,""'' also previously mentioned as designed to 
settle the questions raised in connection with the 
Hayes-Tilden election, became a law in the year fol- 
lowing the last-named enactment (1887). An- 
other important measure of 1887 was the Inter- 
State Commerce Act, which was designed to remedy 
certain railroad abuses, especially with regard to 
discrimination in favour of particular individuals 
and localities. It will be remembered that in the 
late sixties and early seventies the " Granger 
Party " f in the West had endeavoured to control 
the railroads, especially through the State govern- 
ments. It had been asserted at the time, however, 
that Congress could deal with the subject in its 
interstate relations, and the Act of 1887 confirmed 
this assertion. Legislation was sorely needed, for 
competition in many instances was rendered im- 
possible for producers who had no corrupt hold on 
gigantic natural monopolies ; but although some 
good was done at first by the Commission appointed 
to look after the operations of the Act, the pro- 
vision against " pooling " was evaded by the rail- 
way companies and the work of the Commission was 
brought nearly to a standstill. All the measures 
mentioned in this paragraph are, however, memor- 
able for at least one reason — they show that, while 
legislation is very slow in ximerica, no party of re- 
formers need ever despair. Sooner or later a 
needed bill will become laAV, and the fact that the 
great Eepublic is making progress even in legisla- 



* This empowered each State to decide how its vote stands 
in a presidential election. In case of failure to decide, the 
question comes to Congress. 

f See ante, III., xix., p. 345. 



380 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tion, in spite of the floundering of the parties, will 
be apparent. 

We have not space to describe tlie agitation, politi- 
cal and other, conducted at this time by the various 
organisations of workingmen, the " Knights of 
Labour " with upwards of a million members being 
the most conspicuous. It must suffice to say that it 
Avas the South- West, and particularly the City of St. 
Louis and the Missouri Pacific Railroad, that suffered 
most from the great strikes and riots of the spring 
of ISSG. The contemporaneous outburst of the 
Chicago anarchists, which led to the killing of sev- 
eral policemen in Haymarket Square, cannot be so 
briefly treated. Labour strikes and riots were bad 
enough, yet might be regarded as ebullitions of class 
feeling natural to a new and free country; but the 
throwing of dynamite bombs and the deliberate 
promulgation of anarchistic principles made even the 
most optimistic Americans grow apprehensive. The 
millions of foreign immigrants, whose numbers had 
long been frightening thoughtful students, were evi- 
dently not all leaving their old world ideas behind 
them. The foreign sections of Xew York and 
Chicago, where not a word of English was spoken but 
where thousands of ignorant and dishonest votes were 
cast, were now clearly seen to be plague spots that 
must be eradicated. At first popular indignation 
was widespread. Since the return of calm the efforts 
of philanthropists to purify the great cities, to which 
tJie rural population has migrated in enormous 
numbers throughout the present Industrial Epoch, 
have been constant and, it is hoped, increasingly suc- 
cessful. But the Chicago Anarchists were dealt Avith 
by magistrates and not by philanthropists. Several 
of them were imprisoned for life and four were 



THE TARIFF TO THE FRONT. 381 

hanged. The verdict and its execution did not give 
satisfaction to the few people who believe that the 
" terrors " of the law have little effieacv in de- 
terring from crime ; but when several vears later 
Governor John P. Altgeld of Illinois pardoned the 
surviving anarchists, he found from the outcry raised 
that the American public as a whole still believed 
that justice had been meted out to dangerous crim- 
inals. Perhaps, however, if another statesman, less 
suspected than Governor Altgeld of sympathy with 
lawlessness, had done tlie same thing and given the 
same reasons, the American people, in spite of their 
conservatism and hatred of anarchy, might have 
viewed the matter in a different light. 

But it is time to discuss the most important 
feature of Cleveland's first Administration — his as- 
sault upon the tariff, even though we have to pass 
over such interesting topics as the great funeral and 
popular mourning accorded General Grant when he 
died, in 1SS5, under 2>eculiarly distressing circum- 
stances; the terrible earthquake of 1SS6 which al- 
most destroyed Charleston; the erection at oSTew 
York of the colossal Bartholdi statue of Liberty as a 
token of Franco-American amity, and the like.* 

^h\ Cleveland was not eleet-ed primarily because 
he was a low tariff' man, but being a careful ob- 
server of political conditions he soon became one. 
That lie did not want for courage in forcing issues 
upon the politicians was proved by his first message 
to the Forty-ninth Congress (1885), in which he drew 
attention to the fact that not a fourth of the silver 
dollars coined under the Bland- Allison Act of 1878 

* The presence of Confederate generals at Grant's funeral 
and the help given to Charleston v.ere clear proofs that sec- 
tional diflferences were being sniotliered. 



382 PROGRESS OF THE U>'ITED STATES. 

had gone into circulation, aud argued that a con- 
tinuance of the policy would be ruinous. He was 
little heeded, however, and eight years were to 
elapse before he could force the adoption of a new 
policy. But the enormous revenue derived from 
customs duties seemed as pernicious as the practice 
of locking up silver dollars, and he argued at tlie 
same time for a reduction of the duties '' upon the 
imported necessaries of life." He did not believe in 
rashly assailing industries that counted on govern- 
mental help and he spoke about protecting the Am- 
erican workingman, but he also thought that the 
American taxpayer needed protection as well. He 
saw that owners of long period bonds would not sur- 
render them and that the normal expenditures of 
the government were not sufficiently great to prevent 
the piling up of a heavy surplus in the treasury, 
which Congress was only too willing to squander in 
pensions, internal improvements, and questionable 
schemes like that embodied in the Blair Bill. As 
he believed in economy, like the true Jeffersonian 
Democrat he was, he could only advise reduction of 
a tariff which took money out of the pockets of the 
taxpayers and put it directly into a plethoric treas- 
ury and indirectly into tlie coffers of manufacturers. 
Congi*e*s did nothing to carry out the President's 
views, but he did not change his course. In Decem- 
ber, 1SS7, he wrote a bold message in which, while 
protesting that he was not a free trader, he advo- 
cated free wool, low duties on raw materials and on 
necessaries, and the taxing of luxuries. This time 
the Democratic House passed a reduced tariff, but 
not a free trade act, known as the Mills Bill, from 
its chief author, Roger Q. Mills of Texas. The 
Senate was Republican, however, and the measure 



THE TARIFF TO THE FRONT. 3S3 

failed, but Mr. Cleveland had at least determined 
the choice of the chief issue for the next campaign. 
He has been blamed for doing this, on the ground 
that his boldness lost him the election of ISSS, where- 
as if he had waited, he could have sent in his fa- 
mous message later. The obvious reply is that the 
message of 1887 did much to win the election of 
1892, and that Mr. Cleveland was always more of a 
statesman than a politician, and was consequently 
alive to the country's best interests. 

For the new campaign the Democrats had practi- 
cally no choice but to nominate Cleveland, who was 
strong with the party, if not with the politicians, 
but they gave him a thorough party man as a col- 
league in the person of Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, 
whose sobriquet " The Old Roman " was sufficiently 
suggestive of freedom from " Mug\vump " proclivi- 
ties. The Republicans were at first at a loss for a 
candidate after Blaine had declined to be considered, 
Mr. Sherman seeming, on the whole, the favourite. 
But he was finally defeated by General Benjamin 
Harrison, a distinguished Indiana lawyer who had 
made a good record during tlie war and who was 
a grandson of President William Henry Harrison. 
Levi P. Morton of I^ew York was named for Vice- 
President. 

Between the two tickets there should have been 
no question how a patriotic citizen of independent 
views ought to vote in spite of the ability and honesty 
of Harrison. But the Republicans were aided by a 
large campaign fund contributed by anxious manu- 
facturers, and they used it in a most thorough man- 
ner, especially in Harrison's own pivotal State, In- 
diana, where fraudulent voters were divided into 
" blocks of five " and carefully supervised by party 



3S4r PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

managers who saw that the bought ballot was duly 
east.* The Democrats were not too honest them- 
selves, but their efforts at corruption paled before 
those of the Republicans. The latter also circulated 
" campaign lies "' to the effect that undue British 
influence was at the bottom of a free trade move- 
ment which would deprive the American laboiirer 
of his just protection against the pauper labour of 
Europe. It is needless to say that many of the 
simpler-minded voters were completely taken in by 
these plausible falsehoods, and that the public at 
large could not be educated on the complex question 
at issue in the course of a short campaign. An 
" American policy " at least sounded well, and be- 
sides Harrison was a veteran of the Union Army, 
while Cleveland not only had not fought but had 
actually tried to send back the Rebel flags. Preju- 
dice, ignorance, and corrupt use of money carried 
the day, and the ablest and most independent Presi- 
dent since Lincoln was defeated by an electoral vote 
of 16S to his opponent's 233. Yet Cleveland's pop- 
ular vote exceeded that of Harrison by 100,000, 
and he would have been elected in all probability had 
not the Tammany Hall and other Democratic leaders 
in Xew York given votes to the Republican national 
ticket in return for aid in securing the success of the 
Democratic State ticket. 

But if corruption marked this campaign, per- 
sonal scurrilities did not. It is to be regretted, how- 
ever, that the Republicans drew from the British 
Minister, Sir Lionel Saekville-West, a letter touch- 
ing on the campaign, wliich that gentleman should 

* The frauds of this election accelerated the adoption of laws 
for secret balloting, after the Australian model. Such laws 
are now in force in nearlv everv State. 



THE TARIFF TO THE I'RONT. 385 

not have written, bnt which President Cleveland, 
for rather paltry political reasons, deemed worthy 
of official notice. Great Britain refusing very 
properly to withdraw her minister, his passports 
were sent him. His post remained unfilled till the 
expiration of Cleveland's term — a period which, if 
it did not fully meet the expectations of patriotic 
Reformers, at least proved the falsity of the danger- 
ous assumption that the Republican party which had 
saved the Union was the only one that could keep it 
running prosperously. 

President Harrison began his Administration with 
a Congress (the Fifty-first) Republican in both 
branches and with a good Cabinet headed by Mr. 
Blaine. The latter statesman was chiefly responsible 
for the first important event of the term — the meet- 
ing of the Pan-American Congress at Washington 
in the autumn of 1SS9. The objects of this confer- 
ence of delegates would have delighted Henry Clay, 
and were quite legitimate — to wit, the formation of 
an American Customs TTnion and the general pro- 
motion of the common interests of the American Re- 
publics. Little came of the meeting, but interna- 
tional s^mipathics were fostered, and it was clear 
that Mr. Blaine and other Republicans were open- 
ing their eyes to the fact that the United States, so 
long as it insisted on building a high tariff Avail 
around itself, could not complain if South American 
" neighbours " preferred to trade with Great Britain 
and Europe.* 

]\[r. Blaine was less fortunate in his relations two 

* The Union was at this time enlax'oed by the admission of 
six new States : North and South JDakota, Montana, and 
Washington in 1889, and Idaho and "Wvominp: in 1890. The 
constitution of the latter granted political equality to women 
■ — an experiment confined at present to the Far West, 
ox 



386 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

years later with one South American country — • 
Chili. An indiscreet diplomatic appointment began 
the trouble — the American minister * becoming 
a partisan of the Chilian President in the civil war 
then going on between that personage and the Con- 
gress of the country. Popular indignation against 
the United States was aroused in Chili, and this was 
increased by the seizure of a Chilian vessel, the 
Itata, on the request of the Chilian minister at Wash- 
ington, who claimed that she was carrying arms to 
the insurgents. The Itata put to sea, however, and 
was illegally chased by the U.S. cruiser Charleston. 
In October a party of American sailors from the 
Baltimore were attacked in Valparaiso and two were 
killed and several wounded. Sharp correspondence 
followed, and President Harrison sent a message to 
Congress which his critics thought too hectoring for 
so small an affair. Fortunately Chili made amends 
and a war which could scarcely have proved credit- 
able to the larger power was averted. The obvious 
lesson that the United States should employ trained 
diplomatists rather than partisan office-seekers in its 
foreign service has not yet been learned, f 

Mr. Blaine managed well another foreign compli- 
cation of 1891. The Sicilian secret society known a^ 
the " Mafia " had branches in several of the larger 
cities of the United States — notably in !N"ew Orleans, 
— and pursued quite successfully its congenial occu- 
pation of black-mailing and murdering. David C. 



* Mr. Patrick Egan. former Treasurer of the Irish League 
and but lately naturalized at the time of his appointment. 

t See the excellent paper "The Cliilian Controversy" in 
Prof. A. B. Hart's volume of essays already cited. Prof. Hart 
thinks that Mr. Blaine conducted this correspondence with 
discretion. 



THE TARIFF TO THE FRONT. 387 

Hennessy, chief of the ISTew Orleans police, got a 
clue to the nefarious doings of the order, hut in fol- 
lowing it up was cruellj murdered. Several 
Italians were arrested and tried for the crime, but 
to the surprise and indignation of the public, the 
jury acquitted six and failed to agree on a verdict 
with regard to three. Bribery or intimidation 
seemed to have interfered with the course of justice, 
and the next day (March 14, 1891) the " best people 
of the city " resolved to take matters in their ov/n 
hands. Led on by the District Attorney they 
marched to the prison where the Italians were con- 
fined, battered their way in, and then, to the number 
of about sixty, searched for the prisoners and dis- 
posed of them by both shooting and hanging. The 
deed caused great comment throughout the world, 
and was seemingly more praised than condemned. 
Yet, making all due allowance for righteous popular 
indignation at so notorious a miscarriage of justice, 
and granting that what occurred at 'New Orleans 
might have occurred almost anywhere, we may doubt 
whether such outbreaks do not always do more harm 
than good whenever they take place in a civilised 
community. When law does not exist, or is in its 
infancy, its place must be supplied by rough and 
ready methods such as those of the Vigilance Com- 
mittees of early Californian days (1851, 1856, 
1877). But when law does, or should, exist popular 
violence may or may not do away with a present evil 
or nuisance, yet almost certainly does not lead to 
any reform of courts and codes. This is the reason 
why the existence of lynch law is such a menace to 
the South at the present moment — it puts off the day 
of reform and does not really check crime. 

But we are more concerned with the international 



388 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

complications that arose out of the 'New Orleans 
tragedy. The Italian government demanded an in- 
demnity as well as the piunishment of the mob 
leaders, and naturally could not understand Mr. 
Blaine's explanation of the situation. The Federal 
government could pay out money even though it 
stood no chance of getting it back from Louisiana; 
but tlie lynchers could be punished only in the State 
courts, which were certain not to convict. In other 
words, the situation was anomalous. The United 
States were responsible to Italy for the act of Louisi- 
ana, yet Louisiana was not responsible to the United 
States. The Italians tliouglit tluit Mr. Blaine was 
juggling and for a time ^^'ithdrew their minister, 
but finally accepted $25,000 for the families of the 
unfortunate victims of po])ular justice. 

Mr. Blaine had American law in his favour in his 
dealings with Italy, but he seems to have had little 
law of any sort on his side in his management of 
long-standing disputes growing out of the American 
claim to exclusive rights in Bering Sea, with regaril 
at least to seal fisliing. Early in 1892 it was agreed 
to submit the questions at issue to a board of arbi- 
trators — two of whom were to be appointed by the 
United States, two by Great Britain, and one by 
each of the three selected impartial countries, France, 
Italy and Sweden. The arbitrators met in Paris in 
1893 and rendered an award distinctly antagonistic 
to the American claims. They also prescribed regu- 
lations for the protection of seals, to be enforced 
by both the governments interested in the matter. 

Turning now to domestic affairs we find the Lower 
House of Congress agitated over the method adopted 
by its new Speaker, Mr. Thomas B. Beed of Maine, 
to prevent the Democratic minority from " filibus- 



THE TARIFF TO THE FRONT. 389 

tering " i.e., impeding legislation by refusing to vote, 
and thus, by tlie old rules, causing the lack of a 
quorum. Mr. Reed counted as present all members 
^^■hom his eye could see, -svhether they voted or not, 
and was denounced as a tyrant in consequence. Both 
parties had in the j^ast adopted the fiction that a 
member j^resent but not voting was absent, but it had 
impeded legislation to such an extent that the 
" Czar," as he was called, was quite justified in his 
procedure. His usurped power was afterwards given 
him by the rules of the House, and when later the 
Democrats were in control they did not go back to 
the old rules. It may be noted that this partisan 
use of his power by the Speaker was not at all new 
in its general principles, since for three generations 
the Speaker has not been, like his British prototype, 
the impartial moderator of an assembly, but rather 
the leader of a party v/hose business it is to forward 
by his appointment of committees, and in other 
ways, the legislation the party has determined to 
press. 

There were three measures on which the Republi- 
cans had set their heart.s — the Federal Elections or 
Lodge Bill, framed by Mr. (now Senator) Henry 
Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts ; the Dependent Pen- 
sions Bill; and the McKinley Tariff Bill. The 
object of the first bill was to secure fairness of elec- 
tions by authorising Federal supervision whenever 
Federal ofiicers were to be elected. It was immedi- 
ately denounced by the South as a " Force Bill " — 
for troops could be employed in emergencies and 
doubtless would have been used to secure the count- 
ing of negro votes. The measure was also aimed at 
large I^orthern cities, but, whatever its theoretical 
merits, was likely to do much more harm than ffood. 



390 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and was finally defeated in tlie Senate by a coali- 
tion of Democrats and Silver Republicans. Elec- 
tion reforms were meanwhile secured, as Ave have 
seen, by the adoption of Australian and other good 
ballot laws by many States. 

The Pension Bill and the Tariff Bill were carried. 
Congress was lavish enough in its expenditures — 
earning in this way the name of " The Billion Dol- 
lar Congress " — and a few more millions for pen- 
sions meant more votes for the Republicans. There 
was no Cleveland to interpose his veto, so the pen- 
sion attorneys and their claimants reaped a rich 
harvest — pensions rising in 1893 to nearly $160,- 
000,000. The Tariff Bill (1890), reported by Mr. 
"William McKinley of Ohio, made its reputed author 
famous and pushed the principle of protection to an 
extent almost prohibitive of importation.* It ad- 
mitted sugar free, however, and had reciprocity fea- 
tures intended to attract South American trade. It 
caused a rise of prices in certain articles that did a 
good deal to oj)en the eyes of the public to the fact 
that protection of such an extreme sort pressed 
heavily upon the consumer, and in this way it un- 
doubtedly contributed to the crushing defeat of the 
Republicans in the Congressional elections of 1890. 

Other important measures of this Administration 
were the Sherman Act of 1890, which, as a substi- 
tute for the still wilder ideas of Secretary Windom, 
provided for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of 
silver on which legal tender Treasury notes were to 
be issued, the silver dollars of the Bland-Allison 



* Its avowed purpose, indeed, was to reduce the excessive 
revenue — the chief financial problem of the day. Much of the 
surplus had, pi-eviously,beeu expended in reducing the nation's 
debt on disadvantageous terms. 



THE TARIFF TO THE FRONT. 391 

Bill being thus su])erseded; the choice of Chicago as 
the site of the great exposition in honour of Colum- 
bus's discovery of America ; and the Anti-Lottery Bill 
which denied the use of the mails for the trans- 
mission of money to lottery companies. The last 
named law hurt the famous Louisiana Lottery, which 
had done immense harm but was finally expelled 
from the State at the end of 1893, not, however, 
without a bitter political fight in which large amounte 
of corruption money were employed.* 

Besides the Louisiana contest labour troubles in 
Pennsylvania and Tennessee attracted much atten- 
tion. In the summer of 1892 a strike occurred at 
Homestead (Pa.) among the employees of the Car- 
negie Steel Company, and Pinkerton detectives sent 
for to enable non-union men to begin work were 
bombarded by the strikers and forced to surrender. 
The almost fatal wounding of the president of the 
company, H. C. Frick, by an anarchist took away 
popular sympathy from the strikers. In Tennessee 
trouble arose through the practice of farming out 
convicts as miners. In the riots precipitated by the 
free miners, whose work had been cut short by bad 
times, several convicts escaped and the militia had to 
be called out. After a little bloodshed order was 
restored. Meanwhile in the West slight Indian 
troubles had followed the opening of Oklahoma, a 
part of Indian Territory, to white settlers who fairly 
scrambled across the border to secure good tracts of 



* Another evil was finally put down about this time. The 
Edmunds Act against polygamy in Utah had bf^en supple- 
mented in 1687, and the property of the Mormon Church had 
been confiscated. The Supreme Court upholding the art, the 
Mormons renounced polygamy and their property was re- 
stored. 



392 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

land.* But while a scramble for wealth, whether by 
the enactment of an unjust tariff, or by armed con- 
tests with organised capital, or by the erection of 
" boom " towns to answer the needs of a hypotheti- 
cal population, or by normal commercial activity, 
seems to be the characteristic feature of American 
life during the years we are describing, it must al- 
ways be remembered that the solid work of civilisa- 
tion was being carried on by millions of working- 
men who engaged in no strikes or riots and by mil- 
lions of men and women aiming to do their daily 
duty and content with moderate means. Such great 
calamities as the Johnstown (Pa.) flood of 1889 
brought out the fact that if Americans were a 
money-getting race they were equally conspicuous 
for their generosity and public spirit. 

In 1892 Cleveland and Harrison were again pitted 
against one another. The former, who had been 
quietly practising law for four years, had won the 
admiration of the people for his strength and in- 
dependence; it was therefore idle for mere politi- 
cians to oppose him, however much they might dis- 
like him. Harrison, too, had governed well from 
the point of view of his party, and its new leaders, 
McKinley and Reed, had to wait their turn. But 
the Republicans were handicapped by the McKin- 
ley Bill, the attempted Force Bill, their loose ex- 
penditures, although the Democrats in the Fifty- 
second Congress had gone beyond the famous Fifty- 
first, and as a result Cleveland and Adlai E. Steven- 
son of Illinois, a strict party man, beat Harrison 
and Whitelaw Reid of I^ew' York by 277 to 145 

* This Territory was settled up with remarkable rapidity, 
its capital, Guthrie, becoming quite a city within a few 
months. 



THE TARIFF TO THE FRONT. 393 

electoral votes, A new party, the Populists, who 
represented the old Grangers, demanding free silver, 
government ownership of railways and other mono- 
polies — in short, legislation wise and unwise in 
favour of the agricultural classes, managed to gain 
22 electoral votes for its candidates, James B. 
Weaver of lovv^a and James G. Field of Virginia. 
It is a curious fact that this upstart party should 
Iiave been the first to recognise fully that the war 
was over by putting a Southern man on its ticket."* 

* It should be noted tliat during the two Administrations 
covered by this chapter several important centennials were 
celebrated, each of which accentuated the fact that the nation 
was becoming very self-conscious. The formation of great 
associations, whether for political, economic, or religious pur- 
poses, and tlie large attendance on their annual meetings in 
different cities brought out and still brings out the fact that, 
although inhabiting a huge country, Americans are a united 
people. 



394 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

FIN DE SifecLE. 

If Mr. Cleveland's second Administration was less 
successful than his first, it was not because he made 
his former blunder of yielding to the spoilsmen. 
He increased decidedly the number of offices sub- 
ject to Civil Service rules, and made good appoint- 
ments, although his second Cabinet, of which Judge 
Walter Q. Gresham, a former Republican, was pre- 
mier,* was hardly equal to his first. He did not, 
howevei', gain in tact, and he did not keep pace with 
his party in its wild efforts to prevent the growth of 
the Populist movement by the adoption of paternal- 
istic or socialistic rather than truly Democratic is- 
sues. Before the end of his term, therefore, he had 
broken from the party leaders and had been doomed 
to see the measures he had most at heart mutilated 
and thwarted. He lost, moreover, in part that hold 
on the people which had always been his chief source 
of strength, he w^as made the subject of ugly but un- 
substantiated rumours with regard to his relations 
with the capitalistic purchasers of public bonds, and 
when he left office went into a retirement which has 
grieved the many competent judges who consider 
him to be the ablest statesman America has pro- 
duced since Lincoln. What his true rank will be 
among the American Presidents time alone can de- 

*A scarcely correct term applied to the Secretary of State. 



FIN DE SIECLE. 395 

termine, but it is at least clear that his second Ad- 
ministration, more than any other in the history of 
the country, save that of the younger Adams, shows 
that in a repuhlic statesmanly wisdom is of little 
avail unless it is accompanied by skill in the art of 
governing those second-rate political leaders known 
as politicians. It is also clear that he was unjustly 
held accountable for financial troubles due in large 
measure to the pension, tariff, and monetary legisla- 
tion of Harrison's Administration. 

The first matter of importance that confronted 
Mr. Cleveland was inherited by him from his pre- 
decessor. American residents in the Hawaiian Is- 
lands had revolted against Queen Liliuokalani, had 
set up a republic, and had applied for annexation to 
the United States, American troops having been 
previously landed, ostensibly for the protection of 
American lives and property. Mr. Harrison rather 
precipitately allowed a treaty to be agreed upon and 
sent to the Senate. As this had not been ratified on 
his accession to office, Mr. Cleveland withdrew it 
from the Upper House * and sent a commissioner to 
the islands, who proclaimed the previously estab- 
lished American protectorate at an end, though 
President Harrison had already disavowed it. A 
subsequent report induced Mr. Cleveland to believe 
that improper actions on the part of the American 
minister and the premature landing of American 
troops had had much to do with the success of the 
Eevolution; he therefore recalled Mr. Stevens, the 
minister, and replaced him by Mr. Blount, the com- 

* He had acted thus with regard to treaties at the bej?inning 
of his first term — particularly witli regard to a treaty with 
Nicaragua looking to the construction of an interoceanic 
canal. 



396 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

missioner, later on sending, ratlier unwisely, perhaps, 
another minister, Mr. Willis, who was to try to help 
the Queen to regain her authority. But the pro- 
visional government was too firmly entrenched, and 
as Congress was opposed to Mr. Cleveland's policy, 
he could do nothing to repair what he believed to 
have been a wrong done by America to a friendly 
government. The Queen having sold her rights, 
the republic maintained itself in existence, hardly 
by republican methods, until the summer of 1808, 
when, the war watli Spain having somehow altered 
the situation in President McKinley's view, a joint 
resolution of annexation passed Congress and the 
islands became part of the United States. They 
have since received a Territorial oigaiiization, and 
liave seemingly prospered more than the dependencies 
ceded by Spain. 

Mr. Cleveland's policy with regard to TIaAvaiian 
annexation was unpopular Avith many people, but 
w-as certainly dictated by his conscience. It is not 
yet possible to pronounce positively on the merits 
of the controversy, but the history of the race and 
the nation warrants the presumption that the revo- 
lutionists W'Cre not solicitous of complying with the 
demands of justice, and that to have received Hawaii 
in 1893 would have been an act not altogether to the 
credit of the United States. Annexation in 1898 
was more creditable owing to the fact that the revo- 
lutionists had made their title more secure through 
the lapse of time. American motives also were 
slightly more creditable, for the country was actually 
engaged in war and w^as not merely listening with 
avidity to the " Jingo " portion of the press or to the 
pleas of naval officers who were thinking more of 
the strategic importance of the islands than of the 



FIN DE SifiCLE. 397 

principles of the Declaration of Independence. The 
main issue is now a practical one, however, rather 
than an academical one — it is how a good govern- 
ment can be speedily given to the new possession. 

If the attitude of many Americans toward 
Hawaii in 1893 was scarcely creditable, there can 
be little doubt that the fact was obscured to men's 
minds through the lustre of the achievements of the 
great city of Chicago. The Columbian Exposition 
or " World's Fair " had surpassed even the expecta- 
tions of the nation and had impressed the world, in 
a material and an artistic sense, more than anything 
the great Republic had ever undertaken. The Era 
of Industrialism had culminated in something stu- 
pendous, but perhaps that might have been expected. 
It had also culminated in something marvellously 
beautiful — that surprised the world and a majority 
of the Americans themselves. To say that the na- 
tional pride was blown into a flame would be to 
state but a half truth — the beginning was made of 
a renaissance of industrial and architectural beauty 
from which many a generation will profit. ]\[en 
saw clearly that there was no inherent reason why 
the city of gigantic abattoirs should not have a 
fairy " White City " near at hand, the offspring of 
its wealth, intelligence, and energy ; but they went 
further and inferred that the beauty of the artistic 
creation might be transferred in part to the hitherto 
grimy instrumentalities of American commercial and 
industrial life. This is the crowning glory of the 
World's Fair of 1893— that it liberalised the spirit 
of America to an incalculable extent. 

A financial panic was not a proper accompani- 
ment of such an enterprise as the World's Fair, but 
the summer of 1893 saw one of the worst periods of 



398 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

stringency the country lias ever known. Various 
causes have been assigned for it, — the suspension of 
free silver coinage by India, the fear of European 
investors in American securities that the United 
States would come to a silver basis, the extravagant 
legislation of the Harrison Administration, recent 
over-production, and speculation in real estate. 
Whatever the cause the country was drained of its 
gold and the Treasury as well. The President, there- 
fore, called an extra session of Congress for August 
in order that the clause in the Sherman Act author- 
ising the purchase of silver bullion might be re- 
pealed. Mr. Cleveland's views as to the prime 
cause of the panic thus stood revealed; but when, 
after considerable haggling in the Senate, which, 
with the House, was Democratic, he secured the 
desired legislation, no immediate financial improve- 
ment was seen.* The evil effects of an inflated 
currency had to wear themselves out. 

The country was doubtless waiting, in the mean- 
time, to see what would be done Vv'ith the tariff. The 
Democrats stood pledged to its reduction, but the 
Republicans, who were financially more potent, 
clamoured that the adoption of lower duties would 
ruin business. Such clamour, distrust of the Demo- 
crats for other reasons, fear of free silver, and the 
want of confidence that follows a panic probably 
kept the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sher- 
man Act from producing the effect expected. To 

* "November 1, 1893, the bill became a law, and the date is 
memorable as markinj? the close of a long period of fifteen 
years' folly in the purchase of silver. It is a policy unique in 
monetary history ; it is unequalled for audacious disregard of 
all sound reasoning and of the experience of the past." 
— Laughlin, History of Bimetallism in the United States 
(1897), p. 277. 



FIN Dl'] SI]>X'Li:. ;}()0 

these causes was soon added the failure of the Demo- 
crats to carry out any consistent programme. In 
Deeeml)er, 1893, Mr. " William L. Wilson of West 
Virginia reportx^d a tarifF bill which placed sugar, 
wool, coal, lumber, and iron ore on the free list and 
reduced duties on other articles. It was amended 
by a provision for a tax on incomes over $4,000. 
Passiiig the House by a large majority the bill Avent 
to the Senate, where it was held up and greatly 
amended. The House at first refused to " concur," 
but at last yielded to the Senate, and Mr. Cleve- 
land in di-gust would neither approve nor veto the 
final measure, which thus became law against the 
real wishes of its authors. As it ultimately emerged 
the Wilson Bill receded from its original position 
on raw materials and merely reduced duties about a 
quarter on an average. Thus it satisfied no one, 
and when later tlie Supreme Court declared the in- 
come tax unconstitutional and the government, in 
consequence of this diminution of its supplies, had 
to issue bonds to meet its expenses, when, too, there 
was much unfavourable criticism as to the way the 
bonds were placed, it was no wonder that the Re- 
publicans should have carried everything before 
them in the (Jongi-essional elections of 1894.* 

It will long bo a moot point wlK.'ther Mr. Cleve- 
land should not have vetoed the hybrid Wilson Bill, 
The country believed, and with reason, that the 
Sugar Trust and other powr-rful interests had been 
enabled to work their will with certain Democratic 
Senators. A veto by Mr. Cleveland and a frank ap- 

* About this time the Ameri(;an Protective Association, an 
or^^anisation generally believed to be inimical to the spread 
of the political power of the Roman Catholic Church, had a 
short-lived influence on politics. 



400 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

peal to the people might have rallied the voters who 
supported him in 1892 and forced the Senate from 
its position, with the resnlt that a fair experiment 
of the low tariff policy might have been made. As 
it is, other issnes have supervened, the Dingley 
Tariff of 1807 has raised dnties in a confused and 
irritating way, trusts and combinations have been 
formed in great numbers under it, and the cou.ntrv 
in 1901 is little further advanced in its understand- 
ing of the tariff controversy than it was in 1892. 
Should questions arising from the possession of out- 
lying dependencies react upon the tariff question and 
make it an unprofitable issue, it would only be an- 
other instance of American good luck. But had 
Mr. Cleveland forced the low tariff issue in 1894 
things might have been very different. He acted, 
however, on the homely principle that half a loaf is 
better than no loaf. 

Yet there was no lack of firmness in him, as was 
clearly proved by his action with regard to the great 
Chicago strikes of the summer of 1894, which fol- 
lowed the ridiculous demonstration by unemployed 
labourers and tramps kno\^^l as " Coxey's Army." ^ 
Industrial conditions were generally bad, and in the 
town of Pullman (Illinois), owned by the famous 
Palace Car Company, a cut in wages had caused 
great discontent. The American Raihvay Union 
came to the rescue of the employees, but found the 
Pullman Company firm and unwilling to arbitrate. 
A boycott of the Company's cars followed and the 
strike soon spread in all directions. Violent labour 
agitators came to the front, against whom injunctions 
were issued by the United States Courts, and Federal 

* This " army " readied Washington and was dispersed by 
United States troops with little trouble. 



UN DE SIECLE. 401 

troops were sent to Chicago to keep order. Gover- 
nor Altgeld protested that he wanted no help, but 
Mr. Cleveland replied that he was determined that 
the mail service of the United States should not be 
interfered with and that the injunctions of the Fed- 
eral Courts should be properly served. This firm 
stand fortunately checked disorder in Chicago and 
a presidential proclamation quieted the Far West. 
The leading men of the Railway Union were then 
arrested and imprisoned for contempt of court — an 
extension of judicial power seemingly far more 
dangerous than Mr. Cleveland's interference by 
means of Federal troops. 

Curiously enough the President, whose whole 
career had shown him to be possessed of strength 
far above the average, was supposed for several years 
to be weak in regard to the matter of foreign policy. 
An insurrection was going on in Cuba and Ameri- 
cans were incensed both by Spanish cruelties and by 
the losses incurred by their own trade, but Mr. Cleve- 
land gave no sign that he would tolerate a policy of 
intervention or even recognise belligerent rights. As 
in the case of Hawaii, he intended to keep America 
within the bounds of strict legality. Suddenly in 
December, 1895, he startled every one by his now 
celebrated Venezuelan message. His Secretary of 
State, Mr. Richard Olney of Massachusetts, who had 
been promoted from the Attorney-Generalship on the 
death of Mr. Gresham, had been for some time en- 
deavouring vainly to induce Great Britain to ar- 
bitrate a dispute she had for a long time been waging 
with Venezuela over a question of boundary. The 
British naturally questioned the right of the United 
States to interpose, but Mr. Olney supported himself 
on that convenient but much distorted principle of 
z6 



402 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

American policy, the Monroe Doctrine. Mr. Cleve- 
land espoused his Secretary's cause and in his far 
from ui'bano message urged the appointment of an 
American Commission to determine the true bound- 
ary, maintaining that should their report be accepted 
and should Great Britain persist in appropriating 
territory adjudged to belong to Venezuela, the 
United States should resist in every possible way. 

Congress and the country at large, regardless of 
party, supported the President warmly, the Commis- 
sion was appointed, and for a few days war seemed so 
imminent that American securities fell heavily and 
Mr. Cleveland had to ask help of Congress in order 
to meet the drain on the Treasury's gold.* Fortu- 
nately Great Britain kept her temper, and finally an 
agreement to arbitrate tlie Venezuelan question re^ 
lieved the public tension. Whether that tension 
should ever have been caused is a hard matter to 
decide. Both the tone and the matter of the message 
have been severely criticised, and it seems clear that 
the Monroe Doctrine was considerably stretched in 
order to make it fit the case ; but it is equally clear 
that the doctrine of the message, no matter whose it 
be, suited the American people. The wisdom of 
that people in being thus suited is not so apparent, 
for the welfare of the race is of more moment than 
a nation's tenacity in holding to a traditional policy, 
and there v/as no proof whatsoever that Great 
Britain intended to use her claim on Venezuela as 
a wedge for extending her power in South America. 
Whatever suspicions America might liave liad of 

* Tlie lonii of 180G was managed imich better than previous 
loans had been, but the financial history of this and most re- 
cent Administrations has been probably unparalleled since the 
days of John Ijhw. 



FIN DE SIECLE. 403 

the mother country in this particular sliould have 
been courteously veiled in a regret that arbitration 
had failed and a statement that the Monroe Doctrine 
would apply as soon as the disputed boundary had 
been settled within the limits of the current British 
claim, Mr. Cleveland ignored the interests of the 
race, assumed sinister intentions on Great Britain's 
part, and stirred up in his own countrymen a spirit 
of aggressiveness that soon led to a war and a lust 
for territorial domination which he was among the 
first to oppose. We need not, however, join his ene- 
mies in accusing him of truckling for popularity, 
nor should Ave forget that the entire affair is too 
recent for perfectly impartial treatment.* 

We have already noticed the fact that the elections 
of 1894 were very favourable to the Republicans, 
who naturally reaped advantages from the failure of 
the Democrats to carry out their programme. They 
reaped advantage also, in all probability, from the 
discredit cast on their opponents by the disgusting 
revelations brought out by the Lexow investigating 
committee in New York City in 1894. New York 
politics had been notoriously corrupt for years, the 
responsibility lying at the doors of the Democratic 
organisation known as Tammany ITall, which, as we 
have seen, based its power on blackmail, on the ig- 
norance and viciousness of the lower classes, espe- 
cially the newly landed immigrants, and on the 
partisanship of the better classes of Democrats. 
Owing, however, to the brave exertions of a Presby- 

* TJie decision of the arbitrators giving to Great Britain a 
large portion of tlie territory she claimed shows how wrong 
and absurd a war over snch a matter would have been, and 
should put to the blush all the blatant American speakers and 
writers who discussed the complicated question with such 
omniscience five years ago. 



404 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

terian clergyman, Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parldiurst, 
the corruption of Tammany, especially of its police 
force, which connived at any sort of immorality, 
was brought into full relief before the Lexow Com- 
mittee, and in the fall of 1894 a reform ticket swept 
the city. Unfortunately the reformers did not prove 
to be acceptable administrators, and three years later 
the Tammany party carried everything before them. 

More important, however, than Congressional and 
local elections was the presidential election of 1896. 
The chief candidates for the Republican nomination 
were Speaker Reed and ]\Iv. McTvinley, the latter 
having left Congress to be Governor of Ohio. The 
more intelligent element of the party favoured Mr. 
Reed, but Mr. McKinley was easily successful owing 
to the manipulation of the venal Southern delegates * 
by his chief backer, Mr. Marcus A. Ilanna, a shrewd 
Ohio business man. Mr. McKinley was, of course, 
well knov>m for his high tariff views, but his nomi- 
nation was unquestionably secured by machine 
methods, and his election was determined rather by 
the extreme stand taken by his opponents than by 
any merit of his own or of his party. 

For the Democrats at their Chicago Convention 
had finally broken from Mr. Cleveland and all that 
he represented and had formed an alliance with the 
Populists. They advocated the free coinage of 
silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, attacked the Supreme 
Court for certain obnoxious decisions, and actually 

* Southern delegates to Republican conventions are venal 
because it is difficult to secure Republicans of good standing 
in that section and because their votes are only important to 
the nomination, not to the election of a candidate. The ad- 
mittance of delegates from States that by no possibility will 
support a party's candidate seems to vitiate present nominat- 
ing methods. 



FIN DE SIECLE. 405 

condemned the Administration of President Cleve- 
land. The silver plank of this platform was more 
clear cut than the gold plank of the Republicans, 
but for once boldness did not pay. Nor did sensa- 
tional eloquence win the campaign although it se- 
cured the nomination for Mr. William Jennings 
Bryan, a young politician from Nebraska. The 
leading free silver candidate had been Mr. Bland of 
Missouri, but a single eloquent speech from Mr. 
Bryan carried the convention. The campaign that 
follov/ed was exciting. Mr. Bryan delivered a re- 
markable series of speeches throughout the country, 
Mr. McKinley remaining quietly at home, allowing 
Kepublican leaders and, what Vv-as better. Demo- 
cratic dissensions to work for him. The Populists 
had indeed rallied to Mr. Bryan, although they re- 
pudiated the Democratic candidate for Vice-Presi- 
dent, Arthur Sewall of Maine, and substituted 
Thomas E. Watson of Georgia. But large numbers 
of Democrats had followed Mr. Cleveland in dis- 
avoAving the new ticket and platform, and had nomi- 
nated a ticket of their own consisting of a Union 
and a Confederate general respectively — John M. 
Palmer of Illinois and Simon Bolivar Buckner of 
Kentucky. What with thid open split among his 
adversaries and the support of some Democrats and 
Independents who passed over his tariff and other 
views in order to maintain a sound currency, Mr. 
McKinley won a decided victory, actually breaking 
the " Solid South." It was not a victory for high 
tariff as some persons immediately proclaimed, nor 
was it a victory won by William McKinley and 
Garrett A. Hobart of New Jersey in person, for 
Mr. Bryan in spite of his economic vagaries proved 
himself to be a most magnetic candidate; it was a 



406 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

victory for sound financial principles and as such re- 
flected great credit on the American people. The 
final vote was 271 for McKinlej to 176 for Bryan, 
the popular vote for the latter showing, however, that 
even an educational campaign cannot do a great 
deal in overcoming the effects of partisanship. It 
is necessary, though unpleasant, to add that when a 
party elected, like the Republicans, to carry out a 
particular policy fails, as they have so far done, to 
legislate in the direction of that policy, a distinct 
blow is struck at the cause of good government and 
reform. 

As Mr. McKinley's term has not expired and as 
the results of the war with Spain and in the Philip- 
pines cannot yet be gauged, we can afford to pass 
over the three years, 1897-1899, with great rapidity. 
It soon became evident that the tariff was of more 
moment to the Republicans than the currency, and 
scarcely had an extra session of Congress provided 
the Dingley Bill (1897), when the situation in 
Cuba was pressed to the front as an issue, whether 
by design or accident or both is hard to say. Mr. 
McKinley's overtures to Spain were fairly well re- 
ceived, but Spanish schemes for autonomy in Cuba 
did not meet the wishes of the revolutionists, while 
the cruel treatment of the wretched " reconcentra- 
dos " incensed the American people even more than 
the long continuance of liostilities and the conse- 
quent loss to their commerce had done. On Feb- 
ruary 15, 1898, matters reached a crisis in the blow- 
ing up of the American battle-ship Maine. A court 
of American naval officers reported that the ship was 
" destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine," 
and the American people, with few exceptions, ac- 
cepted this verdict of " foul play,'' which was not 



FIN DE SifiCLE. 407 

definitely fastened on any one. A Spanish court 
denied the correctness of the American report, but 
little attention was paid to it in the United States. 
" Kemember the Maine " was a more popular cry 
than " Be calm and do justice." Sensational news- 
papers fanned the popular agitation, thoughtless 
preachers encouraged it, and finally Senator Proctor 
of Vermont, in a speech describing the horrors he 
had seen in Cuba, stirred the heart of the nation 
until war was a foregone conclusion. Congress an- 
swered quickly, very few representatives having the 
courage or the desire to offer calm counsels, and the 
President, who had shown great discretion, was 
practically forced to send in a message, which is 
known as his '' war message," but which, when care- 
fully read, shows that war was by no means necessary 
except on the supposition Americans were bent on 
making, that Spain was not to be trusted to keep 
her promises. On April 19, Congress, not without 
some previous discreditable scenes, passed resolu- 
tions declaring that Cuba ought to be independent, 
an ultimatum was sent to Spain, and in a few days 
war was finally begun.* 

The fighting was not of long duration, as might 
have been expected from the unequal nature of the 
contest. The new navy was well equipped for its 
work, and if the management of the army left much 
to be desired, there was no lack of volunteers and of 
popular enthusiasm. f At last it was clear to every 
one that the country was thoroughly united, for the 

* The Act of May 25 declared the existence of war from 
and including April 21. 

f Shown for example in tlie promptness with which the 
loan authorised by the War Revenue Act of June 13th was 
subscribed for. Internal taxes have since been borne cheer- 
fully, but will probably soon prove burdensome. 



408 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

South furnished her quota of men as loyally as any 
other section. It was clear also that a great change 
had taken place in the relations of the daughter with 
the mother country, for in face of the evident sym- 
pathy with Spain manifested by the chief Conti- 
nental nations Great Britain gave unmistakable 
signs that her heart was with America. Perhaps 
Englishmen did not fully realise how much low 
politics, a sensational press, and democratic in- 
capacity to reason in the midst of prejudices and 
passions had had to do with bringing on the crisis, 
but the rapprochement was nevertheless genuine on 
both sides, and, together with the marked decline of 
the sectional spirit within the Union, it constitutes 
a gain to America from the recent war that cannot 
be overestimated. 

Another considerable gain, although not compar- 
able in importance with the similar gain in the War 
of 1812, is to be found in the increase of national 
pride consequent upon the remarkable victories won 
by the American navy. The statement often made 
of late that the Spanish war gave America a needed 
stand in the eyes of Europe is ridiculously untrue, 
but that it increased Europe's respect for American 
power and that it gave the American people a stim- 
ulus toward great accomplishments in the future is 
undeniable. Such a stimulus, if not governed by 
judgment, may work mischief, but a people that can 
produce such a man as Dewey has a right to opti- 
mistic confidence in itself. Xor is it the victory 
won by Commodore George Dewey at Manila on 
May 1, 1898, that furnishes the only ground of 
this confidence. Dewey's entrance of the channel 
Avas bold, his destruction of the inferior Spanish 
fleet was workmanlike, his victory placed him among 



FIN DE SIECLE. 409 

the great naval commanders of the world ; but his 
subsequent management of affairs at Manila proved 
that he was not merely a great commander but a 
man of affairs worthy of his recent elevation to the 
rank of admiral. For the difficulties that have since 
arisen, he can hardly be held responsible. 

As a naval exploit the destruction, on July 3, of 
Admiral Cervera's fleet as it endeavoured to escape 
from the harbour of Santiago is probably as re- 
markable as Dewey's victory, but unfortunately 
Rear-Admirals W. T. Sampson and W. S. Schley 
have had injudicious friends who have exalted now 
the one commander and now the other, and have 
by their partisanship almost neutralised the glory 
justly attaching to both. And, along with Lieuten- 
ant R. P. Hobson, who bravely attempted to block- 
ade the channel through which the Spanish fleet 
had to pass, these heroes of the home waters were 
too near the reporters and the politicians to be able 
to play in Cuba the part of Dewey. The victor of 
Manila has therefore emerged as the single figure 
of notable importance brought to the front by the 
Spanish war ; but the average American sailor, en- 
gineer, and gunner, who, under their trained oiRcers, 
managed the huge battle-ships of 1898, emerged also 
as perhaps the most efficient defenders of its honour 
and safety any country has ever known. 

So far as the war on the island of Cuba is con- 
cerned, it cannot be denied that the invading vol- 
unteers and regulars, who landed late in June for 
the purpose of capturing Santiago, showed that in 
bravery at least the American soldier was still to be 
relied upon. In the skirmishes and in the assaults 
of El Caney and San Juan (July 1) great diffi- 
culties and losses were cheerfully borne. The in- 



410 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

vestment of the city was undertaken boldly in spite 
of many obstacles and the siege was of very short 
duration, Genei'al Wm. R. Shafter entering the 
place on July 17. But the management of the cam- 
paign, whatever its results, was seemingly bad from 
a military point of view, and the destitution of the 
American troops and their exposure to diseases were 
shockingly unnecessary. Even in camps within the 
borders of the United States disorder and disease 
held carnival; and the country was thoroughly 
shamed in its own eyes and in those of the world. 
For much of this shame the Secretary of War, Gen- 
eral Ivussell A. Alger, and some of his subordinates, 
especially Quarter-Master General Eagan, were held 
responsible, and the official investigations that fol- 
lowed the close of hostilities could not by any 
'*■ whitewashing " process do away with the convic- 
tion that from the political side the war had been a 
disgrace to the country.* The easy taking of Porto 
Rico by General Nelson A. Miles (August, 1898) 
somewhat atoned for the raggedness of the success 
gained by the army in Cuba, but could not bring the 
exploits of the military up to those of the naval arm. 
This fact is not surprising when it is remembered 
that, as in the case of Scott in the Mexican War, 
General Miles, the head of the army, was long de- 
tained in Washington apparently for partisan 
reasons. Meanwhile troops had been hurried to the 
Philippines on the plea that the United States was 
bound to maintain a stable government in the 
islands. 

* General Al^er held to his post in spite of all criticisms and 
was at least outwardly supported by the President. Quite re- 
cently he resigned and was succeeded by Mr. Elihu Root, of 
New York, who is in sympathy with the"President's policy of 
overwhelming the Philippine insurgents. 



FIN DE SINGLE. 411 

Preliminary terms of peace were signed at Wash- 
ington on August 12, 1898 ; the final treaty at Paris 
on December 10, 1898. Spain relinquished her 
hold on Cuba, gave up Porto Rico and the Philip- 
pines to America, receiving for the latter $20,000,- 
000, and in spite of her expostulations was well rid 
of a bad bargain. The Senate ratified the Treaty 
on February 6, 1899. There has been continuous 
fighting with the Philippine insurgents ever since 
February 4, with slight results so far as can be de- 
termined at the present writing. A considerable body 
of influential Americans protested against the acquisi- 
tion of the islands, nor have they ceased to denounce 
the war waged against the insurgents as contrary to 
American ideals and to the best interests of human- 
ity. On the other hand " expansion," as it is called, 
or " the imperial policy," has aroused much popular 
enthusiasm, especially in the West, and has been 
advocated on humanitarian and religious grounds. 
The Anti-Expansionists have perhaps had the best 
of the argument, but the Administration, having 
committed the country, has pursued its policy of 
putting down all armed resistance, and the people 
have seemingly supported it. Little political capital 
was made of the matter until the recent campaign, 
and then the currency issue overshadowed it.* It 
may, however, be predicted with safety that if Mr. 
AlcKinley's recent blow at Civil Service Reform rep- 
resents the permanent policy of the party in power, 
the withdrawal of military control from Cuba and 
the Philippines, whenever that may come, will mean 

* At the moment of revising (February, 1901), tlie Derao- 
orats seem determined to keep v.p their anti-imperial tactics, 
while the Republicans will support Mr. McKinley's policy of 
crushing what is erroneously termed a " rebellion." 



412 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the looting of the new dependencies. The friend- 
ship shown the United States by Great Britain 
dnring the late war and the corresponding good will 
aroused toward the mother country is by all odds 
the greatest gain derived from the success of the 
American arms, but unless friendship with Great 
Britain should suggest the propriety of imitating 
her . methods of dealing with dependencies, the 
abandonment by America of her " policy of isola- 
tion '' will be fraught with disastrous consequences 
both at home and abroad. A truly great Colonial 
Empire cannot be built up on the " spoils system." 
It is only fair to add, however, that the recent re- 
habilitation of Tuba at the liands of the American 
forces stationed in the island has proved abun- 
dantly that the country can give good government to 
its new possessions and has induced in many per- 
sons the belief that it will. Should it do so, the 
Spanish "War will have been justified by its results, 
even if the impartial historian concludes that, like 
the Mexican War, it v/as by no means justified by its 
causes. 



Note. — At the moment of passing these pages through 
tlie press (February. 1901), a few additional facts may be 
noted. The tripartite agreement between Great Britain, 
German}-, and the United States relative to the Samoan 
Islands has been abrogated and the Islands have been divided 
between the two last-named Powers. The United States has, 
in the main, acted in concert witli the Powers in tlie compli- 
cations arising out of the Boxer insurrection in China, Presi- 
dent McKinley having displayed statesmanlike qualities in 
the crisis that have been generally recognised. Indeed, it 
may fairly be admitted that he has strengthened himself as 
an administrntor in spite of his unfortunate yielding to the 
clamours of the protectionists with regard to the tariff finallj- 
determined on for Porto Rico. The excellent diplomatic 
work of the new Secretary of State, Mr. John Hay, especially 
in his efforts to secure a revision of the Clayton-Bulwer 



FIN DE SlJlCLE. 413 

Treaty, deserves hearty recognition. In legislation the most 
important event is doubtless the passage by the Republicans 
in Congress of a bill designed to settle the currency question 
in favour of gold— a tardy measure which is a great gain to 
the country, but, according to some authorities, is not en- 
tirely satisfactory. Tlie expulsion of tlie polygumist Roberts 
of Utah from tlie House of Representatives was unfortunately 
accomplished in a bungling manner, but the denial of seats 
in the Senate to Messrs. Clark and Quay was a step in the in- 
terests of good government. In local affairs Llie wretched 
gubernatorial contest in Kentucky, culminating in the assas- 
sination of the Democratic contestant, Mr. Goebel, the flight 
of the Republican, ]\Ir. Tajior, and sundry misavoury trials, 
is the most marked event. That a civil war was prevented is 
a creditable fact, but the country was shamed in tlie affair as 
well as in the recent prolonged labour strikes, especially in 
St. Louis, and in the lynchings and race riots, particularly in 
New Orleans. The large increase of trusts and of hasty 
laws against them, the considerable gains in the numbers of 
immigrants, in face of recent losses, tiie firm hold still main- 
tained by the " machine" in politics especially in New York 
City and State and in Pennsylvania, may be set down as un- 
favourable signs of the times. The repeal of prohibition 
and Sunday laws, the greater attention paid to public sanita- 
tion, the increased business and commercial prosperity of tlie 
country, may be looked on in the light of compensations. 
With regard to tiie new dependencies, the general Congres- 
sional tendency to leave everything to the discretion of tiie 
Pi'esident is greatly to be deprecated. Porto Rico has already 
suffered nmch from industrial depression. Tlie situation in 
Cuba has improved, but there is talk of not allowing the island 
lull independence. In the Philippines the backbone of the 
insurrection has by no means been broken, irregular fighting 
continues, and American losses, especially from disease, are 
still discouraging. The future of the Islands remains unset- 
tled, the Democrats basing pronounced themselves in favour 
of ultimate independence, the Republicans being somewhat 
non-committal. In the recent campaign between Mr. McKin- 
ley and Governor Tlieodore Roosevelt (Mr. Hobart, the former 
Vice-President, having di-^d) and Mr. Bryan and Mr. Adlai E. 
Stevenson, '•imperialism" u'as made a leading issue, but the 
Democrats were defeated on account of their declaration in 
favo'.ir of the Free Coinage of Silver at IG to 1. Many srmiU 
parties were also in the field, but there was and is slight 
chance of their coalescence into a new party with a rational 
and liberal programme. The Anti-Imperialist movement took 
quite a fanatical turn, and the Independent vote was unfor- 
tunately more perplexed and of less service than in former 
years. The general political situation is, therefore, unsatis- 



414 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

fnctorj' in many respects. It is becoming more and more clear 
that " macliine " politicians have obtained such a hold upon 
the nominating conventions of both parties that these are now 
as inefficient in registering the popular will as tlie old Con- 
gressional caucuses were. The absurd fiasco of Admiral 
Dewey's candidacy for the presidency emphasises the domin- 
ance of the " macliine," the unsatisfactory state of politics, 
and tlie tendency of democracy to reduce to the general level 
all save the strongest cliaracters. The same facts have been 
emphasised by the return of Mr. Quay to the Senate and by 
the legislation accomplished and proposed by the present 
Congress. 



PRESENT AND FUTURE. 415 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



PRESENT AND FUTURE. 



The census of 1870, in consequence chiefly of 
the defects of the law under which it was taken, 
was inaccurate with regard to the population of 
the Southern States to the extent of about one and 
a quarter millions. Corrected figures would give the 
total population at about 30,800,000 and would raise 
the rate of increase to 26.64, The area remains 
the same as in 1860 save for the 531,000 square 
miles of Alaska. The density for the Union proper 
is 12.74, or for the total settled area 30.3 — figures 
which would be slightly increased for the corrected 
population. Four new States have been admitted — 
Kansas, ISTebraska, N'evada, and West Virginia ; 
seven new Territories have also been organized — 
Arizona, Colorado, Dakota, Montana, IS^evada, and 
Wyoming, the appearance of ISTevada in both lists 
indicating the precipitancy with which a " mining 
camp " w^as made a State. 

Within the frontier line, which has been steadily 
pushed westward, the waste places are still consider- 
able in Maine, ISTew York, and Florida, but have les- 
sened in Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Kansas 
and Xebraska * have naturally gained more than 
Texas — ^such immigrants as came to the country 
during the confused decade not caring to go South, 

* The settlement of these States was much helped by the 
influx of Union soldiers after tlie close of tlie war. 



4:16 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and interstate migration being similarly affected. 
Hence we are not surprised to find the compara- 
tively unsettled portions of Missouri, Arkansas, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia re- 
maining practically unchanged. In the Far West 
the country is still dotted with Indian reservations, 
but there is a strip of settlement running up from 
]S[ew Mexico, through Colorado, into Wyoming; 
there is a parallel strip, not so long, running down 
from the Great Salt Lake; there are belts in Wash- 
ington, Oregon, and California ; and there are small 
spots scattered over the whole area. Only in Cali- 
fornia is there a fairly thick belt, reaching across 
the width of the State. 

With regard to the population of the various sec- 
tions we find that all percentages of increase have 
fallen considerably, the figures given for the South 
being, however, much too low. The first four 
States have not changed their rank since 1860; they 
still run ISTew York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois. 
Virginia, overrun by war and dismembered, has 
dropped from fifth to tenth place, her population 
having increased only 100,000 in the decade. In 
her place stands Missouri ; immediately below her 
comes Iowa, which has made the greatest gain of 
all the States. The cities still stand ISTew York, 
Philadelphia, Brooklyn ; but Baltimore has now 
dropped from fourth to sixth, St. Louis and Chi- 
cago having both shot past in their heated rivalry 
for the commercial control of the Central States. 
Rotable gains have also been made by San Fran- 
cisco, Cleveland, Jersey City, and greatest of all — 
Indianapolis. The proportion of urban to total 
population has reached the high point of 20.93 ; 
'Nev: York is little short of 1,000,000 inhabitants; 



PRESENT AND FUTURE. -tl7 

Philadelphia is ncaring 700,000, Brooklyn 400,000, 
Chicago 300,000. 

The census of 1880 showed no increase of area 
but reported a population of 50,155,178, an increase 
of 30.08 per cent. Allowing for the defects of the 
census of 1870, this percentage has been corrected 
to 25. 9G. All the sections save the I^orth-West 
showed gains in their percentages of increase, the 
heavy influx of foreigners partly accounting for the 
fact. Xo new State had been added exccjjt Colo- 
rado, but a very large extent of country had been 
brought under occupation in Dakota, Kansas, Ne- 
braska, Texas and tlie Far West. Florida, too, was 
being settled up, and the whole South showed a con- 
siderable increase in density of population. From 
Indiana to Massachusetts the country was in the 
main settled at a density of from 45 to 90 to the 
s(piare mile. Counting the area of settlement as 
a little over 1,300,000 square miles, the average den- 
sity of settlement stood at 32. 

The first eight States have retained their relative 
ranks— New York with a little over 5,000,000, 
Pennsylvania with over 4,250,000, Ohio, Illinois, 
Missouri, Indiana, Massachusetts, Kentucky — the 
last containing nearly 1,050,000. Virginia is now 
fourteenth instead of tenth ; Michigan, Texas, 
Kansas, Nebraska and Cclorado have made notice- 
able gains, as has also Dakota Territory. Tennessee, 
Maryland, and Maine have dropped in the scale, 
but South Carolina has made a slight rise. The pro- 
portion of url)an population is only 22.57 — the 
smallest gain for many decades, but there are now 
twenty cities containing over 100,000 inhabitants, 
compared with fourteen in 1870. In New York 
Citv alone we find upwards of 1,200,000, and if we 
27 



418 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

were to add in the populations of Philadelphia and 
Brooklyn we should have in these three cities con- 
sidcrablv more inhabitants tlian could be found in 
all the to"wns and cities of the States that held slaves 
in 1861 ! Certainly the effects of an institution 
like slavery are far reaching. They are seen in the 
fact that Charleston has now dropped from the 
twenty-sixth to the thirty-sixth place, and that im- 
mediately below it stands the manufacturing town 
of Fall River, Massachusetts, which a decade bo- 
fore had been at the foot of the list. 

In 1890 no gain of area had been made, but the 
population had risen to 62,622,250, the percentage 
of increase being 24.86. In this count, as in all pre- 
vious ones, the non-taxed Indians were not enumer- 
ated ; if the Indians in Indian Territory and the 
reservations had been counted, as well as the inhab- 
itants of Alaska, the population would have fallen 
little short of 63,000,000. Six new States have 
been admitted to the Union, in some cases perhaps 
prematurely, to wit, Idaho, Montana, ISTorth Dakota, 
South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming. One 
new Territory, Oklahoma, has been organised out 
of a portion of Indian Territory, and there are now 
five Territories left. The admission of Utah as a 
State in 1896 makes the Union of to-day consist of 
forty-five States, four Territories exclusive of 
Alaska, and one District. In 1890 eight of the 
extreme Western States, including T^ebraska, had in- 
creased their populations over one hundred per cent. 
Fourteen States and Territories showed increases 
ranging from twenty-five to one hundred per cent., 
conspicuous among them being Florida, which as a 
health resort and a fruit-growing region had almost 
doubled its population. Texas and Arkansas, as 



PRESENT AND FUTURE. 419 

grazing and farming States, liad also gained largely, 
and so had Minnesota. The lumber State, Michi- 
gan, and the home of manufactures, Massachusetts, 
did not show such a conspicuous rise but were both 
above the twenty-five per cent. line. On the con- 
trary, Maine had grown very little; Vermont, whose 
farmers had sought more fertile fields, scarcely at 
all. jSTevada had actually decreased tv/enty-six and 
a half per cent, and numbered but little over 45,000 
inhabitants. On the whole manufacturing States 
had flourished, farming States, even like the rich 
Ohio, had not gained so much as might have been 
expected, owing to the competition of the Farther 
West; and the m.ining States had naturally fluc- 
tuated in population, their percentages of increase, 
while large in appearance, not being so enormous 
as used to be the case with frontier States and Terri- 
tories. 

In relative rank ISTew York and Pennsylvania 
still held the first and second places with nearly 
6,000,000 and slightly over 5,250,000 respectively. 
Illinois had now taken third place and Ohio dropped 
to fourth, their populations being, in round numbers, 
8,820,000 and 3,672,000. Missouri still stood fifth, 
but Massachusetts and Texas had passed Indiana. 
Kentucky had dropped to the eleventh place, for- 
merly occupied by Texas. Georgia, Tennessee, Wis- 
consin, Virginia, ^N'orth Carolina and Alabama fol- 
lowed with populations ranging from 1,837,000 to 
1,513,000. Besides Texas, Minnesota, Nebraska, 
Colorado, and Washington had made the most con- 
spicuous gains in relative rank; Mississippi, ]\raine, 
Vermont, Delaware, Arizona and Nevada had all 
declined considerably. 

As for the urban population, its growth had been 



420 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

very pronounced, the percentage standing 29.20 
as compared with 22.57 for 1880. Of the eighteen 
and a quarter millions living in towns and cities 
nearly five-sixths were found in the Korth and 
Xorth-West, where manufacturing was at its height 
and where railroads were most widely spread. In 
]^ew England and the larger Middle States more than 
half the population was urban, in the South less tlian 
thirteen per cent. The South therefore is not only 
the native American section, but also represents the 
nation of two generations ago by being in the 
main a section of farmers. For the entire country 
there were in 1890 448 towns and cities having 
8,000 inhabitants and upwards ; there was one city 
with over 1,500,000 — Xew York; there were two 
with a little over a million, — Chicago and Philadel- 
phia. Brooklyn had over 800,000 ; St. Louis over 
450,000. Eleven cities had over 200,000 and less 
than 450,000; tv/elve had between 100.000 and 
200,000. If :N'ew York's suburbs had been count- 
ed in 1890 the aggregate population would have 
formed after London the largest city on the globe, 
a position which is now held by Greater l^ew York 
Avith its estimated population for Jan. 1, 1899, of 
0,549,588. If estimates may be trusted, Chicago 
will count at the next census not far from 1,700,000, 
while the general increase of urban poj)ulation will 
probably be maintained. ^Ve may now pass to 
more general matters with the remark that in the 
decade 1880-1890 the most noticeable gains in 
relative position among the cities were those made 
bv ]\[inneapolis, St. Paul, Kansas City, Denver, and 
Atlanta ; the most noticeable decline that of Trov, 
Xew York. 

We linve dwelt in a preceding chapter upon the 



PRESENT AND FUTURE, 421 

important services rendered the country between 
1S30 and 1860 Ly its foreign-born citizens. These 
services have increased rather than diminished since 
the Civil War. Between 1861 and 1870 over 
2,300,000 immigrants camo in; between 1871 and 
1880 over 2,800,000; between 1881 and 1890, 
5,246,613. During the present decade there has 
been a falling oft from the enormous figures just 
given, partly in consequence of restrictions on pau- 
pers and criminals, but the total number will prob- 
ably not fall far short of 4,000,000, in which Cana- 
dians M'ill not be included. In the face of this tre- 
mendous influx of foreigners many Americans have 
felt that their institutions are in danger and have 
advocated restrictive legislation, especially as there 
has been a steady increase of immigration from 
Austria-Hungary, Kussia and Poland, and Italy — 
countries which do not furnish as good material for 
citizenship as do the Teutonic nations.''^ That there 
is much to be urged in favour of restricting the low- 
est or pauper class of innnigration cannot be denied, 
yet it would seem that all, or nearly all, that was 
formerly said about the service done the country 
between 1830 and 1860 by the foreigners who built 
railroads and performed other manual tasks may be 
affirmed of the period from 1860 to the present day. 
The American is averse from domestic service; hence 
foreigners, especially Irish and Scandinavians, who 
are too sensible to object to filling positions in house- 
holds, have helped to raise the standard of com- 
f<u'table living. In many of the States they have 
done great good by recruiting the farmer class, 

* At the close of his secorul Administration. President Cleve- 
land vetoed a bill providing a rather unwise educational 
test for immigrants. 



422 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

which, so far as natives are concerned, has been 
more and more attracted to the cities. In trade, 
commerce, and manufacturing they have often proved 
themselves capable of success. In railroad build- 
ing and manual labour generally they have con- 
tinued to be immensely useful, while as miners they 
have had a large share in promoting the phenomenal 
growth of the iron, steel and other cognate industries. 
On the whole, then, the country of to-day owes little 
but thanks to the majority of its emigrants — to the 
nearly 2,000,000 natives of England, Scotland, and 
Wales; to the nearly 8,500,000 Germans; to the 
more than 1,000,000 Scandinavians who have land- 
ed on its shores since 1860. This conclusion is con- 
firmed by the fact that in the recent Avarlike flurry 
that swept over the land, the foreign element of the 
population was distinctly in favour of peace. 

It may, of course, be true that immigration has re- 
duced the rate of natural increase ; that the country 
would have been nearly as populous if the foreign- 
ers had not come. But it is doubtful whether ma- 
terial progress would not have been slower than it has 
been ; whether the capital brought with them by the 
immigrants, and their willing hands, and their per- 
fect freedom of movement throughout the Continent 
have not stim.ulated the native American to greater 
activity and helped to bridge over the nation's period 
of adolescence. However this may be, it is at least 
certain that, in 1800, 14.77 per cent, of the inhabi- 
tants of the United States were foreign born, and that 
tl 9 proportion of the white element of native birth 
and extraction to the white element of foreign birth 
or extraction was as 62.49 per cent to 37.51 per cent. 
For weal or woe the foreigner has indelibly im- 
pressed himself upon America. 



PRESENT AND FUTURE. 423 

With regard to the distribution of the foreign- 
born population, we find tliat it has been steadily 
attracted to the northern half of the country. In 
jSTew England and the Middle States nearly one- 
fourth of the inhabitants are foreign born; the 
proportion for the Xorth-West is lower, but in some 
States it is very high, as for example in Xortli Da- 
kota and Minnesota (44.58 and 35.90 per cent, re- 
spectively). In the Far West the proportion again 
rises to a fourth, while for the entire South it is 
still very low — less than three per cent. The rich 
lands of Texas and the newness of the State have 
attracted the largest number of immigrants, 6.84 
per cent, of the inhabitants being foreign born in 
1890. Mississippi on the other hand, with its large 
negro population, has proved so little attractive that 
only .62 per cent, of foreign born whites could be 
enumerated. In Xorth and South Carolina the 
proportions were still lower, being .23 and .54 per 
cent. respectivel,y. In the same year nearly 640,000 
persons of foreign birth resided in the City of ISTew 
York alone, and about 450,000 in Chicago ; in 
Texas there were not quite 150,000 ; in ISTorth Caro- 
lina only about 3,700. 

But the South has had a class of inhabitants far 
more productive of grave problems than foreigners 
have ever been, although the latter have undoubtedly 
caused trouble in municipal ])olitics and in matters 
connected with public education and Avith the em- 
ployment of labour. As has been stated, the figures 
of the ZSTinth Census with regard to the negroes were 
misleading. They made the coloured population of 
the Union amount to only 4,880,009, Ten years 
later 6,580,793 were reported, making the percent- 
age of increase appear to be 34.85 as compared with 



424 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

only 29.22 for the whites. These figures would have 
been ominous if they had been correct, but the 
statistics for 1800 showed pLiiiily that there was no 
reason to fear that the inferior was increasing faster 
than the superior race. In that year the total num- 
ber of negroes was found to be 7,470,040, and the 
percentage of increase to be only 13.51, that of the 
whites being almost twice as great — 26.68. The 
question, therefore, seems now to be, not whether the 
negroes will overrun the South, but whether the 
South will have enough labourers peculiarly suited to 
its climate.* 

With regard to the distribution of the race, which 
constitutes, by the way, not quite twelve per cent, of 
the total population of the country, it may be rough- 
ly said that it does not average two per cent, for any 
of the sections save the South and South-West. 
Even in Missouri it does not amount to six per cent., 
and the figures for ^ew Jersey, the highest for any 
jSTorthern State, are only 3.30. In the South At- 
lantic States, however, the negroes constitute nearly 
37 per cent, of the population, and in the South- 
West nearly 32. In most of these States there had 
been quite a constant increase in the proportion of 
coloured inhabitants up to 1880; but in 1890 only 
West Virginia, whore the number of negroes is 
trilling, j\Iississipi)i, and Arkansas showed an in- 
crease. South Carolina and Mississippi are the only 
States in which the whites are outnumbered, al- 
though Louisiana has only in tiie last decade obtained 
a bare white majority — her percentage of negroes 
standing 49.99. Time is thus seen to be working 
for the Southern white, and he has also secured his 

* The larger birth-rate among the negroes is more than 
counterbalanced by the heavy infant mortality. 



PRESENT AND FUTURE. 425 

supremacy in some States by constitutioual, if un- 
fair, means; but he has still to put down mob law 
and to increase his appropriations for public educa- 
tion if he wishes to attract labour and capital to his 
rich fields and his teeming mines. 

The fact that the South stands to-day ready to be- 
stow fortune upon incoming labourers and capitalists 
recalls the further fact that the population of the 
United States has long been characterised by ex- 
treme mobility. In 1890, 11,500,000 persons were 
found living in States in which they had not been 
born. We have all along had occasion to notice the 
tendency of population to move westward, but it is 
hard to realise how greatly certain States have 
been affected by the migratory habit of the Ameri- 
can, who seems to foreigners to change his home 
with as little concern as he does his coat. New 
York for example, according to the census of 1890, 
had received over 400,000 native immigrants from 
other States, but had sent out over 1,200,000 of her 
own people. Ohio and Pennsylvania also had lost 
more than twice as many as they had gained. Vir- 
ginia had lost nearly 600,000 and had not gained 
100,000 in return. Illinois and Missouri and 
Texas on the other hand had gained far more than 
they had lost, and this was true of Florida and of all 
the States west of the Mississippi River. Horace 
Greeley's advice, " Go West, young man," has been 
unhesitatingly obeyed by his countrymen.* 

Turning now to consider what this immense, ac- 

* This westward migration has created several sticcessive 
" Farther Wests," with the energy and crudeness of pioneer 
settlements, and has p:reatly affected American social, in- 
dustrial and political history. See " The Problem of the 
West," by Prof. F. J. Turner, Atlantic Monthly, Sept., 1896. 



4,26 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

live American people, whether native or foreign 
born, white or coloured, is doing, throughout its 
immense possessions, for the development of the 
nation and of the world, we find ourselves confronted 
with a task which even a trained body of statisti- 
cians would regard with dismay. The utmost that 
we can here do toward its accomplishment is to 
array a few salient facts and bid the reader let his 
imagination do the rest.* 

The government of the United States has on its 
civil list 178,717 persons, who receive an aggregate 
annual salary of nearly $100,000,000. When the 
civil lists of the forty-five States are added as well 
as the civil lists, if v/e may thus si)eak, of all the 
towns and cities, we can form some idea of the im- 
portance that public employment holds in the mind 
of the average American. But the Federal govern- 
ment, even with its recently augmented army and 
navy, does not employ so many men as the aggregate 
railways of the country, M'hich in 1897 had 823,476 
emplovees at wages and salaries amounting to 
$165,601,581. 

But even these figures pale before those that repre- 
sent the wage earners in the chief groups of occupa- 
tions. In 1890 about one-half the population over 
ten years of age were wage earners — over 9,000,000 
in agriculture, fisheries, and mining; nearly 950,000 
in the various professions; 1,360,000 in domestic 
and personal services; 3,326,000 in trade and trans- 
portation, and nearly 5,100,000 in manufacturing 
and mechanical industries. The total value of in- 
dustries for 1890 was estimated at $8,535,000,000, 
of which vast amount 28 per cent, was assigned to 

* Some of the facts here cited are taken from that invalu- 
able manual Tlie Statesmmi's Year Book for 1899. 



PRESENT AND FUTURE. 427 

agriculture, 52 to manufactures, 12 to trans]Dortation 
and 8 to mining. There were 4,600,000 farms, 
worth on the average about $3,000, On them were 
produced 399,262,000 bushels of wheat, 1,489,970,- 
000 of corn, 488,256,646 pounds of tobacco, and 
7,472,511 bales of cotton, to say nothing of other 
crops. Yet that even these enormous figures will be 
greatly increased at the census of 1900 is clear from 
the fact that in 1898 the corn crop was little short of 
2,000,000,000 bushels and the wheat crop upwards 
of 675,000,000 bushels. As for manufactures, the 
capital invested in 1890 was $6,139,000,000, over 
twice as much as that for 1880. The gross value 
of tlie product was $)9,000,000,000, the net value 
$4,000,000,000. In consequence of the growth of 
corporations the average capital per esitablishment 
has increased in ten years from $11,000 to $15,000. 
The increase in number of persons employed has not 
been so great, on account of the largely increased use 
of machinery, but the net product per hand was 
nearly $1,000 and the annual stipend was on the 
average $440. 

It is hardly necessary to burden the reader's mind 
with more figures. Still it may be well to note that 
for the year ending June, 1898, the total exports 
amounted to $1,231,482,330 — figures which were 
surpassed by those for 1900. Imports for 1898 
were $616,049,654 — a decided decrease. There was 
also a slight decrease in the tonnage of the merchant 
marine, which amounted to 4,749,738 tons; but 
every year has seen an increase in the number of 
miles of railroad in operation. In 1890 there were 
166,691 miles; in 1897 there were 184,603. De- 
tails as to banking, insurance, et cetera micrht be 
given indefinitely, but perhaps as good an idea of 



428 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the nourishing state of the country may be gained 
from a few educational statistics as from any other 
source. For the year 1896-97 over fourteen and a 
half millions of scholars were enrolled in the public 
schools, and over four hundred thousand teachers 
were employed to instruct them. At the same time 
there were over 217,000 students attending univer- 
sities, colleges, normal and professional schools. 
In no other country is education more highly prize* 1 
— a fact brought out well by the percentages of ii- 
literacy supplied by the Census of 1890. Only 
0.2 per cent, of the native white population of over 
ten years of age was found to be illiterate. For the 
foreign born whites the percentage was 13.1 ; for the 
negroes, 56.8. The largest number of illiterate 
whites and negroes is of course found in the South, 
precisely the section that spends least money on its 
public schools. 

With regard now to the comparative standing of 
the United States among the great nations, we find, 
according to the eminent statistician, Mr. M. G. 
Mulhall, that American foreign trade is less than 
that of France or Germany or Great Britain, al- 
though domestic industries nearly equal the aggre- 
gate of those of tliG three countries mentioned.* 
Yet there has been a great development of foroign 
trade, especially since 1880. The value of food ex- 
ports is of course enormous, American farmers sup- 
plying 30,000,000 people in Europe besides the 
70,000,000 at home, and Mr. Mulhall saw no 
reason why their exports should not continue to in- 
crease with population throughout the next century. 
The same is true with regard to cotton and petro- 

* See his article in The North American Eeview for Novem- 
ber, 1897. 



PRESENT AND FUTURE. 420 

leiim, nor is it likely that trade with Europe will, as 
in the past, throw into the shade commerce with other 
countries. Trade with the West Indies and South 
America has greatly increased of late, while the out- 
look for trade with the Far East is encouraging, al- 
though, according to some authorities, not to be com- 
pared in importance with that with nations to the 
South. 

Turning from trade to aggregate power and wealth, 
we find little reason to think that Mr. Mulhall ex- 
aggerated when he said : " If we take a survey of man- 
kind in ancient or modern times as regards the phy- 
sical, mechanical and intellectual force of nations, 
we find nothing to compare with the United 
States. . . ."* In 1820 the working power of the 
country was 4,293 millions of foot-tons daily; in 
1895 it was 12.9,306 millions. " The United States 
possess almost as much energy as Great Britain, 
Germany and France collectively." As for total 
wealth, this was estimated for 1890 at 106,336,000, 
000 — thirty-five per cent, more than that of Great 
Britain, although less per inhabitant than that of 
Great Britain, France, or Holland. This enor- 
mous wealth was not of course distributed evenly, the 
Middle States having nearly twice as much as the 
Southern and over three times as much as Xew 
England; the Pacific States falling between the 
Southern and l^ew England ; the N^orth- Western or 
Prairie States having not merely almost a third as 
much again as the IVfiddle, but more than the three 
remaining sections combined. + The Middle States 

* See his article in The North American Review for June, 
1895. 

f The fieures are : New En.a:land, $5,223,000,000 ; Middle 
States, $17,819,000,000; Southern States, $9,928,000,000; 
Prairie States, $25,256,000,000 ; Pacific States, $6,811,000,000. 



4aO PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

are, however, the most potent portion of the Union 
in spite of the agrienltural wealth of the North- 
Wcst, and of the niannfacturing, banking and educa- 
tional progress of JS^ew England. The South is 
naturally the most backward section, her educational, 
banking and railroad facilities being quite inade- 
quate to her needs, her chief labouring class being 
unintelligent, her laws not properly enforced, and 
her immense resources but beginning to be utilised. 
The progress of Texas and Florida, however, and 
the brave efforts made by the whole section to over- 
come the disastrous effects of the Civil War seem 
to indicate that in time the South may surpass the 
other sections in power and wealth. As for the 
Pacific States their rise to prominence in less than 
half a century is one of the world's greatest marvels. 
Although the population is still small, considering 
the great area to be covered, yet tlie dcvelo])ment of 
railways, of public schools, of mines, of farms, of 
vineyards, the grappling with difficulties connected 
with distance from the world's great centres and witli 
h;ck of water supply, must ever reflect credit upon 
the early pioneers and their successors, and must 
cause a thrill of patriotic pleasure to the far-off 
American who lives and dies without sight of their 
great canons, without a breath of tlieir balmy air. 
It is quite needless to say in conclusion that the 
])eriod of which we have just sketched imperfectly 
the enormous development, has been marked as fully 
as any previous period by the characteristic Ameri- 
can notes of energy and inventiveness. Never be- 
fore have such colossal fortunes been made in so 
short a time; never before has speculation been so 
rife, competition so fierce, or the rewards of energy 
more alluring. At the same time it must be con- 



PRESENT AND FUTURE. 4,31 

fessed that seemingly never before has labour been 
so discontented, or corporate capital so heartless, 
or the average citizen so goaded by the desire to 
become rich and notorious. The quiet, rural life 
of 1801 is the exception, not the rule, in 1901. The 
children of the rich tend to lead luxurious lives, 
which people of moderate means too often strive 
to imitate. Extremes of wealth and of poverty con- 
front one another in the great cities; a plutocracy 
has arisen in the midst of the democracy. Never- 
theless it seems clear that the masses of the people 
still lead clean, wholesome lives, respect family and 
church ties,* and are practically unaffected by de- 
cadent tendencies. The divorce, the temperance, 
and other problems are serious ; but they are not 
vital in the eyes of the historian, although they are 
in those of the reformer. 

The inventions of the period have in many ways 
tended to increase the power of corporate capital. 
Companies have been formed to supply towns with 
electric street railways, with electric lights, with 
telephones, and the like. A gigantic corporation 
controls the oil supply not merely of the country, 
but of the world. Great amounts of capital are 
invested in fire-proof buildings of immense height. 
Factories are built with slight regard to the beauty 
of the landscape, llore and more costly machinery 
has come into use supplanting labourers and ab- 
sorbing capital. Tn like manner the trust or 
" combine " is crowding out the single corporations. 
It is 'par excellence an industrial era, in which man's 

* III 1800 file communicants of the varioiis churches agprre- 
pcated 20. Of}, 800 or 3'3.92 per cent, of tli^^ total population. The 
four leading chiirches are the Roman Catholic, the Methodist, 
the Baptist, and tlie Presbyterian. 



432 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

life is dominated by the mechanical arts. Even the 
great author uses a typewriter and takes his exer- 
cise on a bicycle. 

But although the whir of machinery is heard 
everywhere intellectual life has not been repressed 
in America. On the contrary it is seen to have made 
great strides when we view it in the aggregate. 
There has been an educational renaissance ; schools 
and colleges have grown in numbers, in excellence, 
in influence. Magazines and newspapers have been 
greatly improved and cheapened ; more good books 
are being produced than ever before and more fairly 
talented writers are coming to the front. Long- 
fellow, Hawthorne, Emerson, Lowell and Poe have 
not left their equals, but the average man of letters 
of 1901 far surpasses his predecessor of 1850. In 
the arts, too, general progress has been made, espe- 
cially, as we have seen, in that of architecture. In 
pure science, in technical scholarship, in applied 
sciences like medicine and engineering, Americans 
have not merely held their own but have won 
the admiration of the world. In astronomy and 
physics and meteorology and geology and anthro- 
pology their work has been especially noteworthy, 
nor is the list exhaustive. 'No aristocracy of poets, 
thinkers, and artists has given or gives a crowning 
glory to the nation, but the intellectual and artistic 
achievements of the democracy have been just as 
memorable, perhaps, from the jioint of view of the 
greatest good to the greatest number. It seems, 
therefore, permissible to conclude that on the whole 
the American people have every reason to be proud 
of the advance they have made in the nineteenth cen- 
tury in practically every sphere of human activity, 
save in that of politics. 



CONCLUSION. 433 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



coNCLUsrox. 



In the preceding pages we have traced the prog- 
ress of the United States through what a great 
scientist has rightly denominated as " this wonder- 
ful century." We have recorded a phenomenal 
growth in area, in population, in wealth, in military 
and intellectual achievements. Had it seemed well 
to dwell upon facts of immediately contemporary 
history, we could have made the record still more 
striking by dilating upon the possibilities of the colo- 
nial empire which is being founded in the islands 
of the Atlantic and the Pacific by a people for whom 
a continental stretch of over 3,000,000 square miles 
seems to be too narrow a territory. But is America's 
colossal growth in this tremendous century the most 
important fact in her history ? 

Obviously not. The most important fact in her 
history is that she began the century as a small Re- 
public just inaugurating a democratic regime, and 
that she ends it as a gigantic Republic under nearly 
the same regime. The prime fact in American his- 
tory is the comparatively encouraging success of the 
democratic experiment. If this chapter had been 
penned twenty years ago it would have appeared 
fair to omit the qualifying " comparatively." 
Then the fact that the Republic had survived the 
shock of the greatest civil war of modern times 
would have seemed sufficient proof of the vitality 
28 



434 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of the nation and of the complete success of the 
democratic experiment. But, as we have seen, 
within the past two decades social and economic 
questions rather than political have confronted the 
voters of the country, and they have not known how 
to adjust their party machinery to them. Political 
corruption and social and economic unrest have 
grown apace, and the issue is not yet. Finally it 
has been proposed that the Republic should under- 
take the task of governing alien and distant peoples 
to whom it is not thought advisable to promise rights 
of citizenship in the near future. In view of these 
facts and of the general and specific criticisms that 
within the last quarter of a century have been passed 
upon the workings of the government, it would seem 
that the careful student cannot now affirm that the 
democratic experiment in America is an unqualified 
success. 

But that it has been on the whole a fair success 
seems undeniable. It has stood both the strain of 
time and the stress of war. It has satisfied and still 
satisfies a nervous, restless people who wull not put 
up with anything less than the best. Rich or poor, 
foreign or native born, learned or ignorant, the 
American loves his democratic country where all 
men are equal before the law and where the will of 
the majority rules or is supposed to rule. Even 
when he has become sophisticated enough to criti- 
cise the workings of his government, he still loves 
it and prefers it to any other; he still believes 
that the defects that he has discovered will be reme- 
died in time through the action of the people them- 
selves. He cannot even fancy himself or his fellow- 
citizens submitting to any form of government less 
liberal. He desires no radical change and can con- 



CONCLUSION. 435 

ceive of none. He ridicules the suggestion that a 
plutocracy, an oligarchy, or a tyranny may some 
day supplant the Ilepublic. 

^ow an experiment in government that has come 
to seem to the people living under it as eternal and 
as natural as the very land and sky is surely a suc- 
cess in many important respects. It can hardly 
indeed be called an experiment. Yet nothing is 
clearer than the fact that, while democracy has been 
a success in America, while in all likelihood it will 
never be supplanted by an inferior form of govern- 
ment, it has nevertheless not meant the same thing 
to successive generations in this century and will not 
in all probability attain a fixity of content or mean- 
ing for future generations. The democracy of Jef- 
ferson was not that of Jackson; nor would either 
statesman greatly sympathise with that of Mr. 
Bryan. In other words American democracy is 
subject to the law of evolution; in the last analy- 
sis the democratic experiment remains an experi- 
ment. 

As we have seen, Jefferson believed in the right 
and power of the people to elect able men to office 
and to determine the general character of the gov- 
ernment under which they would live. Jackson be- 
lieved in the right of the people to aspire to office, 
in the soundness of their general views upon pub- 
lic issues, and in the sanction given by their votes 
to the actions of the man of their choice. Mr. 
Bryan has apparently constituted himself the voice 
rather than the leader of the people, and would give 
the latter a scope in the management of social and 
economical forces which even Jackson would prob- 
ably have thought unwise. A pessimist might, 
then, easily find it in his heart to declare that the 



430 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

democratic experiment has gone through three stages 
in America, to each of which the people at large 
and the politicians of all parties have readily ac- 
customed themselves. Beginning with a philan- 
thropical and philosophical sharing of the power of 
the classes wuth the masses, it speedily degenerated 
into the formation of a vulgar partnership between 
leaders and people, from which it has passed into 
the establishment of a huge political phalanstery 
(to borrow the expression of Fourier) in which 
sciolistic orators blindly direct the chaotic labours 
of a multitude of ignorant men, women and children. 

ISTo such pessimistic view shall be taken in these 
pages because whatever strictures may be rightfully 
passed upon the present status of politics in America, 
no impartial observer can fail to perceive that the 
heart of the people is thoroughly sound; that they 
have made and are making great strides in educa- 
tion; that they have displayed much practical wis- 
dom not only in their private concerns, but also in 
such public matters as the overthrow of the Feder- 
alists and the abolition of slavery; that they have a 
deep and abiding love for tlieir country and an in- 
domitable determination to preserve and hand on to 
posterity the blessings of liberty and equality. Of 
such a people, honest, kind-hearted, capable of en- 
thusiasm, energetic, practical, ambitious, one can 
hardly believe too much. 

The history of America affords, therefore, little 
room for pessimism and much room for a healthy 
optimism ; but it does not afford room for sentiment- 
alism or for foolhardy confidence. Yet it is quite 
plain that there is a type of American that will not 
bear sober criticism of his country and government, 
as well as one that fondly imagines that because 



CONCLUSION. 437 

Nature has abundantly blessed tlie land ber bless- 
ings can be exploited without thought for the future^, 
and that because the American people has uniform- 
ly^ succeeded in its past undertakings, it is warranted 
in the belief that nothing is impossible to it. Both 
types are numerous and noisy, the latter being es- 
pecially the product of the Middle West with its 
rich fields, its streaming oil wells, its large, prosper- 
ous population. 

Yet nothing can be plainer than that the American 
has been wasteful of his resources, and that these, 
though tremendous, are not inexhaustible. Slavery 
was immensely wasteful. Absurdly liberal pension 
laws, high and unscientific tariffs, bad methods of 
financiering, a partisan civil service, dishonest muni- 
cipal administrations, " log rolled " appropriations 
for so-called "internal improvements" — all these 
things are M-asteful to-day — much more v/asteful 
than even slavery was. Kailroads unwisely built 
and owned by private parties, natural monopolies for 
the supply of gas and water and the like given away 
by cities to capitalists and speculators, public lands 
lavished on corporations or amassed by shrewd in- 
dividuals — these things too are wasteful, and they 
by no means exhaust the heart-rending category. 
How long can America stand them ? is the question 
of the ihoug'litful inquirer. ''" Xone of your busi- 
ness " or " We'll mend things by-and-by " are the 
answers he gets from super-sensitive and over-pam- 
pered patriots. As for the criticisms that have been 
justly passed upon the government of which Ameri- 
cans are so proud, their mere enumeration would fill 
more pages than we now have to spare. The philo- 
sophic foreign student of politics used to look to 
America for political lessons; it would be idle for 



i38 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

him to seek instruction of a positive character in the 
history of the country during the past quarter of a 
century. The frequency of elections and the con- 
sequent turmoils ; the state of the civil service even 
after yeai"S of attempted reform; the metiiod of 
choosing Senators; the popular inability or unwill- 
ingness to cope with the lobby; the blundering ex- 
periments made with the tariff, with the public 
debt, and with the currency ; the toleration of ex- 
press, telegraph and other private monopolies ; the in- 
j udicious treatment of the Indian and the negro ; the 
failure to put down mob-law — from these and sim- 
ilar things the foreigner can surely learn nothing 
that would be profitable save as a warning and de- 
terrent. 

But the native student of politics has been of late 
even more thoroughgoing in his criticisms than any 
foreigner has been, and his countrymen have winced 
under his strictures. He has pointed out that many 
present evils are of native growth — snch as the 
" boss " sj'stem and the pension scandal. He has 
subjected the machinery of government to rigorous 
analysis and found it defective in many respects. 
He has shown conclusively that Americans are gov- 
erned not by a great bi-cameral deliberative body 
known as Congress, but by small groups of Senators 
and Representatives forming committees. He has 
called attention to the vastly augmented power of 
the Speaker of the House. He has regretted the 
absence of ministerial influence upon Congress and 
the consequent gulf tlia,t separates the heads of exec- 
utive departments from the legislature that votes 
supplies. In short the Federal Judiciary is almost 
the only department of government that has emerged 
practically unscathed from his analysis. 



CONCLUSION. 439 

He has gone further and declared that the country- 
has many positive reforms to make. He declares 
that a permanent official class is needed in subor- 
dinate administrative positions whether national, 
State, or local, as well as commissions on banking 
and currency, taxation and revenues, appropriations 
and internal improvements, labour problems and the 
like. All this in order that Congress and the State 
legislatures may be relieved of work they cannot do 
well, and that the electorate may be freed from the 
responsibility of voting upon matters which it can- 
not comprehend and could not even under the most 
favourable educational conditions. He declares 
further that there is need of courts or boards of 
confirmation to office and of impeachment and re- 
moval, as well as of some differentiation of the suf- 
frage. In other words he would strengthen the 
executive, even while relieving the individual Presi- 
dent, would render the legislature more efficient 
by confining it to its proper lines of activity, and 
v.^ould limit the interference of the people with the 
practical conduct of affairs.* 

l^ow it does not behove us to attempt to play the 
part of prophet and endeavour to determine whether 
a people that has once tasted political power will 
ever consent to give up privileges acquired. 'Nov 
need we dilate upon the theory already advanced 
in these pages to the effect that most of the political 
evils at present afflicting America are due to the 
unfitness of the two-party system for cojiing with 
social and economic problems. We are not even 
concerned with trying to show that the probable 
outcome of contemporary complications will be the 

* See Prof. J. H. Hyslop's Democracy. New York, 1899. 



440 PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

gradual introduction of a modilication of the group 
system now in vogue in Germany, and a slow trans- 
formation from a democratic to a semi-socialistic 
state. All these things belong to the future, and we 
are now required merely to emphasise two facts — 
first, that the United States in spite of its great past 
and its inspiring present is like all other nations 
fallible and subject to much adverse criticism; 
secondly, that there is no reason to believe that the 
immense forces that are shaping the destiny of the 
country will necessarily take either a sinister or a 
still more prosperous direction. In other words 
Avhat is required of us is to take neither a pessimistic 
nor a blatantly optimistic view of the future, but to 
be grateful for the abundant mercies of Providence 
in the past and present, and to believe that the des- 
tiny of America is in the hands of her own people 
acting under the eye of God. 



APPENDIX A. 

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF 
AMERICA. 

Preamble. 

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more 
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, 
provide for the common defence, promote the general wel- 
fare, and secure tlie blessings of liberty to ourselves and OTir 
posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the 
United States of America. 

Article I. Legislative Department. 

Section I. Congress in General. 

All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a 
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate 
and a House of Representatives. 

Section II. House of Representatives. 

1. The House of Representatives shall be composed of 
members chosen every second year by the people of the 
several States ; and tlie electors in each State shall have the 
qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous 
branch of the State Legislature. 

3. No person shall be a representative who shall not have 
attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years 
a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when 
elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be 
chosen. 

3. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned 
among the several States which may be included within this 
Union, according to tlieir respective numbers, which shall be 
determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, 
including those bound to service for a term of years, and 
excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. 
The actual enumeration shall be made within three years 
after the first meeting of the Congress of tlie United States, 
and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such man- 

441 



442 APPENDIX A. 

ner as they shall by law direct. The number of representa- 
tives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but 
each State sluiU have at least one representative; and until 
such enumenition sluill be made, the State of New Hampshire 
shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rliode 
Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, 
New York six. New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Dela- 
ware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten. North Carolina five. 
South Carolina five, and Georgia three. 

4. When vacancies liappen in the rei)re.sentations from any 
State, the executive authority tliei'eof shall issue writs of 
election to fill such vacancies. 

.5. The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker 
and other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeach- 
ment. 

Section III. Senate. 

1. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of 
two senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature 
thereof for six years, and each senator shall have one vote. 

3. Immediatel}'' after they shall be assembled in conse- 
quence of the first election, they shall be divided, as 
equally as may be, into tliree classes. The seats of the 
senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of 
the second year, of the second class at the expiration of the 
fourth year, and of tlie third class at the expiration of the 
sixth year, so that one-tliird may be chosen every second 
year ; and if vacancies happen, by resignation or otherwise, 
during the recess of the Legislatui'e of any State, the execu- 
tive thereof may make temporary appointments until tlie 
next meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such 
vacancies. 

3. No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained 
to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the 
United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an in- 
habitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. 

4. The Vice-President of tlie United States shall be Presi- 
dent of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be 
equally divided. 

5. The Senate shall choose their officers, and also a presi- 
dent pi'O tempore, in the absence of the Vice-President, or 
when he shall exercise the office of President of the United 
States. 

6. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeach- 
ments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath 
or affirmation. When the President of the United States is 
tried, the chief justice shall preside ; and no person sliall be 
convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the 
members present. 



THE CONSTITUTION. 443 

7. Judgment in case of impeachment shall not extend 
farther than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold 
and enjoy any office of honour, trust, or profit under the United 
States ; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable 
and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment 
according to law. 

Section IV, Both Houses. 

1. The times, places, and manner of holding elections for 
senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each State 
by the Legislature thereof ; but the Congress may at any 
time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to 
the place of choosing senators. 

2. The Congi-ess shall assemble at least once in every year, 
and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, 
unless they shall by law appoint a different day. 

Section V. The Houses Separately. 

1. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns, 
and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each 
shall constitute a quorum to do business ; but a smaller num- 
ber may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to 
compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner 
and under such penalties as each house may pi'ovide. 

2. Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, 
punish its members for disorderly behaviour, and, with the 
concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member. 

3. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and 
from time to time publisli the same, excepting such parts as 
may in their judgment require secrecy ; and the yeas and 
nays of the members of either house, on any question, shall, 
at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the 
journal. 

4. Neither house during the session of Congress shall, 
without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three 
days, nor to any other place than that in which the two 
houses shall be sitting. 

Section VI, Disabilities of Members. 

1. The senators and representatives shall receive a com- 
pensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and 
paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all 
cases, except treason, felony, breach of the peace, be privileged 
from arrest dui-ing their attendance at the session of tlieir 
respective houses, and in going to or returning from the 
tame ; and for any speech or debate in either house, they 
shall not be questioned in any other place. 



444 APPENDIX A. 

2. No senator or representative shall, during the time for 
which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under 
the authority of the United States, which shall have been 
created, or the emoluments Avhereof shall have been increased, 
during such time ; and no person holding any office under the 
United States shall be a member of eitlier house during his 
continuance in office. 

Section VII. Mode of Passing Laics. 

1. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House 
of Representatives ; but the Senate may propose or concur 
witli a.mendments. as on other bills. 

2. Every bill which shall have passed tlie House of Repre- 
sentatives and the Senate shall, before it become a law, be 
presented to the President of the United States ; if he ap- 
prove, he shall sign it ; but if not, he shall return it, witli his 
objections, to that house in which it shall have originated, 
who shall enter the objections at large on tlieir journal, and 
proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two- 
thirds of that house shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be 
sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by 
which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by 
two-thirds of that house, it shall become a law. But in all 
such cases the votes of both houses shall be determined by 
yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and 
against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each house 
respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President 
within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been 
presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if 
he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment 
prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law. 

3. Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concur- 
rence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be 
necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be 
presented to the President of the United States ; and before 
the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or, being 
disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the 
Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules 
and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill. 

Section VIII. Powers granted to Congress. 

The Congress shall have power : 

1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to 
pay the debts and provide for the common defence and gen- 
eral welfare of the United States ; but all duties, imposts, 
and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States ; 

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States ; 



THE CONSTITUTION. 445 

3. To regulate commerce witli foreign nations, and among 
the several States, and with the Indian tribes ; 

4. To establish a uniform rule of natux-alization, and uniform 
laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United 
States ; 

5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign 
coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures. 

6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting tlie se- 
curities and current coin of tlie United States ; 

7. To establisli post-offices and post-roads ; 

8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by 
securing for limited times to authors and inventors the ex- 
clusive right to their respective writings and discoveries ; 

9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court ; 

10. To define and punish felonies committed on the high 
seas, and offences against the law of nations ; 

11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, 
and make rules concerning captures on land and water ; 

19. To raise and sujiport armies ; but no appropriation of 
money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years ; 

13. To provide and maintain a navy ; 

14. To make rules for the government and regulation of 
land and naval forces ; 

15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the 
laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel inva- 
sions ; 

16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining tlie 
militia, and for governing such part of them as may be em- 
ployed in the service of the United States, reserving to the 
States respectively the appointment of the officers, and the 
authority of training tlie militia according to the discipline 
prescribed by Congress. 

17. To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatso- 
ever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as 
may, by cession of particular states and the acceptance of 
Congress, become the seat of government of the United 
States, and to exercise like autliority over all places pur- 
chased, by the consent of the Legislature of the State in 
which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, 
arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings ; and, 

18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper 
for carrying into execution tiie foregoing powers, and all 
otlier powers vested by this Constitution in the government 
of the United States, or in any department or office thereof. 

Section IX. Potvers denied to the United States. 

1. The migration or importation of such persons as any of 
the States now existing shall think jjroper to admit shall not 



44G APPENDIX A. 

be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand 
eight hundred and eight ; but a tax or duty may be imposed 
on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each 
person. 

3. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be 
suspended unless when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the 
public safety may require it. 

3. No bill of attainder, or ex-post-facto law, shall be passed. 

4. No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in 
proportion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed 
to be taken. 

5. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from 
any State. 

6. No preference shall be given by any regulation of com- 
merce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of 
another ; nor shall vessels bound to or from one State be 
obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another. 

7. No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in con- 
sequence of appropriations made by law ; and a regular 
statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all 
public money shall be published from time to time. 

8. No title of nobility shall be granted by the United 
States ; and no person holding any office of profit or trust 
under them shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept 
of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind what- 
ever, from any king, prince, or foreign state. 

Section X. Poivers denied to the States. 

1. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or con- 
federation ; grant letters of marqiieand reprisal ; coin nioney ; 
emit bills of credit ; make anything bu-t gold and silver coin 
a tender in payment of debts ; pass any bill of attainder, 
ex-post-facto law, or law impairing the obligation of con- 
tracts ; or grant any title of nobility. 

2. No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay 
any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may 
be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws ; and 
the net prodvice of all duties and imposts laid by any State 
on imports or exports shall be for the use of the treasury of 
the United States, and all such laws shall be subject to the 
revision and control of the Congress. 

3. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay 
any duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in times of 
peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another 
State or with a foreign power, or engage in war unless actually 
invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of 
delays. 



THE CONSTITUTION. 447 

Article II. Executive Department. 
Section I. President and Vice-President. 

1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of 
the United States of America. He shall hold his office during 
the term of four years, and, together with the Vice-President, 
chosen for the same term, be elected as follows : 

3. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legis- 
lature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to tlie 
whole number of senators and representatives to which the 
State may be entitled in the Congress ; but no senator or 
representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit 
under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. 

3. [Tlie electors shall meet in their respective States, and 
vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not 
be an inhabitant of the same State witli themselves. And 
they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the 
number of votes for each ; which list they shall sign and 
certify, and transmit, sealed, to the seat of the government 
of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. 
The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the 
Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, 
and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the 
greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such 
number be a majority of the whole number of electors ap- 
pointed ; and if there be more than one who have such majority, 
and have an equal number of votes, then tlie House of Repre- 
sentatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for 
President ; and if no person have a majority, then, from tlie 
five highest on the list, the said House shall in like manner 
choose the President. But in choosing the President, the 
votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each 
State having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall con- 
sist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, 
and a majority of all the States sliall be necessary to a choice. 
In every case, after the choice of the President, the person 
having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be 
the Vice-President. But if there should remain two or more 
who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by 
ballot the Vice-President.] ^ 

4. Tlie Congress may determine the time of choosing the 
electors, and the day on which they will give their votes, 
whicli day shall be the same throughout the United States. 

5. No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of 
tlie United States at tlie time of the adoption of this Consti- 
tution, shall be eligible to the office of President ; neither 
shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have 

1 Altered by the Xllth Amendment. 



448 APPENDIX A. 

attained to the age of tliirty-five years, and been fourteen 
years a resident within the United States. 

8. In case of the removal of the President from office, or 
of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers 
and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the 
Vice-President ; and the Congress may by law provide for the 
case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the 
President and Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then 
act as President ; and such officer sluiU act accordingly, until 
the disability be removed or a President shall be elected. 

7. Tlie President shall, at stated times, receive for his 
services a compensation, whicli shall neitlier be increased nor 
diminished during the pex'iod for wliich he shall have been 
elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other 
emolument from the United States, or any of them, 

8. Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall 
take the following oath or affirmation : 

" I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully 
execute the office of President of the United States, and will, 
to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the 
Constitution of the United States." 



Section IT. Poivers of the President. 

1. The President shall be commander-in-chief of the army 
and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the sev- 
eral States vrlien called into the actual service of tiie United 
States ; he may require the opinion in writing of the princi- 
pal officer ineacliof the executive departments upon any sub- 
ject relating to the duties of their respective offices ; and lie 
shall have power to grant rei^rieves and pardons for offences 
against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. 

2. lie shall have power, by and with the advice and con- 
sent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-tliirds of 
the senators present concur ; and lie shall nominate, and by 
and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint 
ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of 
the Supreme Court, and all other officei's of the United States, 
whose appointments are not lierein otherwise provided for 
and which shall be established by law ; but the Congress may 
by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they 
think proper in tlie President alone, in the courts of law, or 
in the heads of departments. 

3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies 
that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting 
commissions, which shall expire at the end of their next 
session. 



THE CONSTITUTION. 449 

Section III. Duties of the President. 

He shall, from time to time, give to the Congress informa- 
tion of the state of the Union, and recommend to their con- 
sideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and ex- 
pedient ; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both 
houses, or either of them ; and in case of disagreement be- 
tween them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he 
may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper ; he 
shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers ; he 
shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall 
commission all the officers of the United States. 

Section JV. Impeachment of the President. 

Tlie President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the 
United States shall be removed from office on impeachment 
for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high ci-imes 
and misdemeanours. 

Article III. Judicial Department. 
Section I. United States Courts. 

The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in 
one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as Congress 
may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, 
both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their 
offices during good behaviour ; and shall, at stated times, re- 
ceive for their services a compensation, which shall not be 
diminished during their continuance in office. 

Section II. Jurisdiction of the United States Courts. 

1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and 
equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United 
States, and treaties made or which shall be made, under their 
authority ; to all cases affecting ambassadoi's, other public 
ministers, and consuls ; to all cases of admiralty and mari- 
time jurisdiction ; to controversies to which the United 
States shall be a party ; to controversies between two or moi"e 
States ; between a State and citizens of another State ; be- 
tween citizens of different States ; between citizens of the 
same State claiming lands under grants of different States ; 
and between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign 
states, citizens, or subjects.' 

2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, 
and consuls, and those in which a State shall be a party, the 

1 Altered by Xlth Amendment. 

«9 



450 APPENDIX A, 

Supi'eme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the 
other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have 
appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with sucli ex- 
ceptions and under such regulations as the Congress sliall 
make. 

.3. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, 
sliall be by jurj' ; and sucli trial shall be lield in the State 
where the said crimes shall have been committed ; but wlien 
not committed witliin any State, the trial shall be at such 
place or places as the Congress may by law have directed. 

Section III. Treason. 

1. Treason against the United States shall consist onlj^ in 
levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, 
giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted 
of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the 
same overt act, or on confession in open court. 

2. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment 
of treason ; bvit no attainder of treason shall work corruption 
of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person 
attainted. 

Article IV. The States and the Federal Government. 
Section I. State Records. 

Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the 
public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other 
State. And the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the 
manner in wliich such acts, records, and proceedings shall be 
proved, and the effect thereof. 

Section II. Privileges of Citizens, etc. 

1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privi- 
leges and immunities of citizens in the several States. 

2. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or 
other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in 
another State, shall, on demand of the executive authorit}^ of 
the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed 
to the State having jurisdiction of the crime. 

3. No person held to service or labour in one State under the 
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of 
aiiy law or regulation therein, be discharged from such serv- 
ice or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party 
to whom such service or labour may be due. 

Section III. Neio States and Territories. 
1. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this 



THE CONSTITUTION. 451 

Union ; but no new State shall be formed oi" erected within 
the jurisdiction of any other State ; nor any State be formed 
by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, 
without the consent of the LegisUitures of the States con- 
cerned, as well as of the Congress. 

2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make 
all needful rules and regulations resjjecting, the territory or 
other property belonging to the United States ; and nothing 
in this Constitution sliall be so construed as to prejudice any 
claims of the United States or of any particular State. 

Section IV. Guarantee to the States. 

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this 
Union a republican form of government, and shall protect 
each of them against invasion ; and, on application of the 
Legislature, or of the executive (when the Legislature cannot 
be convened), against domestic violence. 

Article V. Po'wer of Amendment. 

The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall 
deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Consti- 
tution, or, on the application of the Legislatures of two-thirds 
of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing 
amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all in- 
tents and purposes as part of this Constitution, when ratified 
by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or 
by conventions in thi'ee-fourths thereof, as the one or the 
other mode of ratification may be proposed by Congress ; 
provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the 
j'ear one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any man- 
ner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of 
the first Article ; and that no State, without its consent, shall 
be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. 

Article VI. Public Debt, Supremacy of the Constitu- 
tion, Oath of Office, Religious Test. 

1. All debts contracted and engagements entered into be- 
fore the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against 
the United States under this Constitution as under the Con- 
federation. 

2. This Constitution, and the laws of the United States 
which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties 
made, or wliich shall be made under the authority of the 
United States, shall be the supreme law of the land ; and the 
judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anytliing in the 



452 APPENDIX A. 

Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwith- 
standing. 

3. The senators and representatives before-mentioned, and 
the members of the several State Legislatures, and all execu- 
tive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of 
the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to 
support this Constitution ; but no religious test shall ever be 
required as a qualification to any office or public trust under 
the United States. 

Article VII. Ratification of the Constitution. 

The ratifications of the Conventions of nine States shall be 
sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between 
the States so ratifying the same. 

Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the 
States present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year 
of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and 
of the Independence of the United States of America the 
twelfth. 



AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION. 
Article I. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ; or abridg- 
ing the freedom of speech, or of the press ; or the right of 
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the govern- 
ment for a redress of grievances. 

Article II. 

A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of 
a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms 
shall not be infringed. 

Article III. 

No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house, 
without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in 
a manner to be prescribed by law. 

Article IV. 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
papers, and effects, against unreasonable seai'ches and seizures 



THE CONSTITUTION. 453 

shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon 
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particu- 
larly describing tlie place to be searched, and the persons or 
things to be seized. 

Article V. 

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise 
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a 
grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, 
or in the militia when in active service in time of war or pub- 
lic danger ; nor shall any person be subject for the same 
offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall 
be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against 
himself ; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without 
due process of law ; nor shall private property be taken for 
public use without just compensation. 

Article VI. 

In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the 
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the 
State and district wherein the crime shall have been com- 
mitted, which district shall have been previously ascertained 
by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the 
accusation ; to be confronted with the witnesses against him ; 
to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his 
favour ; and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence. 

Article VII. 

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy 
shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial bj^ jury shall be 
preserved ; and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re- 
examined in any court of the United States than according to 
the rules of the common law. 

Article VIII. 

Excessive bail shall not be I'equired, nor excessive fines 
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted. 

Article IX. 

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall 
not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the 
people. 

Article X. 

The powers not granted to the United States by the Consti- 



454 APPENDIX A. 

tution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the 
States respectively or to the peoj^le. 

Article XI. 

The judicial power of the United States shall not be con- 
strued to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or 
prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of 
another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign 
State. 

Article XII. 

1. Tlie electors sliall meet in their respective States, and 
vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, 
at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with 
themselves ; they shall name in their ballots the person voted 
for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for 
as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all 
persons voted for as President, and of all i)ersons voted for as 
Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, whicli 
lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the 
seat of government of the United States, directed to the Presi- 
dent of the Senate ; the President of the Senate sliall, in the 
presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all 
the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted ; the 
person having the greatest number of votes for President 
shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the 
whole luunber of electors appointed ; and if no person have 
such majority, then from the persons having the highest 
numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for 
as President, the House of Representatives shall choose im- 
mediately bj^ ballot the President. But in choosing the Presi- 
dent, tlie votes shall be taken by States, the representation 
from each State having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose 
shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the 
States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to 
a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not 
choose a President, whenever the right of choice shall devolve 
upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, tiien 
the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of 
death or other constitutional disability of tlie President. 

2. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice- 
President shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a 
majority of the wliole number of electors appointed, and if no 
person have a majority, then from tlie two liighest numbers 
on the list the Senate shall choose the Vice-President ; a 
quorum for the pvirpose shall consist of two-thirds of the 
whole number of senators, and a majority of the whole num- 
ber shall be necessary to a choice. 



THE CONSTITUTION. 455 

3, But' no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of 
President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the 
United States. 



Article XIII. 

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a 
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly 
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place 
subject to tlieir jurisdiction. 

2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by 
appropriate legislation. 



Article XIV. 

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and 
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United 
States and of the State wherein tliey reside. No States shall 
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges 
or immunities of citizens of the United States ; nor shall any 
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without 
due process of law, nor deny to any person within its juris- 
diction the equal protection of the laws. 

2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several 
States according to th.eir respective numbers, counting the 
whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians 
not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for 
the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the 
United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and 
judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature 
thereof, is denied to any of the male members of sucli State, 
being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United 
States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in 
rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein 
shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such 
male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens 
twenty-one years of age in such State. 

3. No person shall be a senator or representative in Con- 
gress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or holding 
any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under 
any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member 
of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a mem- 
ber of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial 
officer of an}' State, to support the Constitution of the United 
States, shal^ha^'e engaged in insurrection or rebellion against 
the same, or given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof. 
But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, 
remove such disability. 



^56 APPENDIX A. 

4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, 
authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of 
pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection 
or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United 
States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obliga- 
tion incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the 
United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of 
any slave ; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall 
be held illegal and void. 

5. The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate 
legislation the provisions of this article. 

Article XV. 

1. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote 
shall not be denied or abi-idged by the United States or any 
State on account of race, colour, or previous condition of 
servitude. 

2. The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate 
legislation the provisions of this article. 



PRESIDENTS AND VICE-PRESIDENTS. 457 



APPENDIX B. 

LIST OF PRESIDENTS AND VICE-PRESIDENTS WITH 
THEIR TERMS OF OFFICE. 

1789-1793— George Washington. 

John Adams. 
1793-1797— George Washington. 

John Adams. 
1797-1801-John Adams. 

Thomas Jefferson. 
1801-1805— Thomas Jefferson. 

Aaron Burr. 
1805-1809— Thomas Jefferson. 

George Clinton. 
1809-1813— James Madison. 

George Clinton. 
1813-1817— James Madison. 

Elbridge Gerry. 
1817-1831— James Monroe. 

D, D. Tompkins. 
1821-1825— James Monroe. 

D. D. Tompkins. 
1825-1829— John Quincy Adams. 

John C. Calhoun. 
1829-1833 — Andrew Jackson. 

John C. Calhoun. 
1833-1837— Andrew Jackson. 

Martin Van Buren, 
1837-1841— Martin Van Buren. 

R. M. Johnson. 
1841-1845— Wm. Henry Harrison. 

John Tyler (became President, 1841). 
1845-1849— James K. Polk. 

George M. Dallas. 
1849-1853— Zachary Taylor. 

Millard Fillmore (became President, 1850)o 
1853-1857— Franklin Pierce. 

William R. King. 
1857-1861 — James Buchanan. 

J. C. Breckinridge. 



458 - APPENDIX B. 

1861-1865— Abraham Lincoln. 

Hannibal Hamlin. 
1865-1869— Abraham Lincoln. 

Andrew Johnson (became President, 1865). 
1869-1873— U. S. Grant. 

Schuyler Colfax. 
1873-1877— U. S. Grant. 

Henry Wilson. 
1877-1881— R. B. Haves. 

Wm. A. Wheeler. 
1881-1885— Jas. A. Garfield. 

Chester A. Arthur (became President, 1881). 
1885-1889 — Grover Cleveland. 

T. A. Hendricks. 
1889-1893— Benjamin Harrison. 

L. P. Morton. 
1893-1897— Grover Cleveland. 

Adlai E. Stevenson. 
1897-1901— Wm. McKinley. 

G. A. Hobart. 
1901- Wm. McKinley. 

Theodore Roosevelt. 



STATES AND TERRITORIES. 459 



APPENDIX C. 

STATES AND TERRITORIES OF THE UNITED STATES 
OF AMERICA, WITH DATES OF ORGANISATION 
AND ADMISSION, POPULATION AND AREA IN 
1900. 

Dates of Organisa- 
States and Terii- tion as Territory Population Area in 
tories. and Admission as 1900. sq. miles. 

State. 

Alabama 1817,1819 1,828,697 51,540 

Alaska 1884 44,000 533,409 

Arizona 1883 12'3,313 112,920 

Arkansas 1819,1836 1,311,564 53,045 

California 1850 1,485,053 155,980 

Colorado 1861, 1876 539,700 103.645 

Connecticut One of the 13 states. 908,355 4,845 

Delaware " 184,735 1,960 

District of Columbia 1791 278,718 60 

Florida 1822, 1845 528,542 54,240 

Georgia One of the 13 states. 2,210,329 58,980 

Idaho 1863, 1890 161,771 84.280 

Illinois 1809,1818 4,821,550 56',000 

Indiana 1800,1816 2.516,463 35,910 

Iowa 1838, 1845 2,251 ,829 55,475 

Kansas 1854,1861 1,469.496 81.700 

Kentucky 1792 2.147.174 40.000 

Louisiana 1805,1812 1,381,627 45,420 

Maine 1820 694,366 29,895 

Maryland One of the 13 states. 1,189,946 9.860 

Massachusetts " 2.805,346 8,040 

Micliigau 1805, 1837 2,419,782 57,430 

Minnesota 1849,1858 1,751,395 79,205 

Mississippi 1798,1817 1,551,372 46.340 

Missouri 1812,1821 3,107,117 68.735 

Montana 1864, 1889 243.289 145,310 

Nebraska 1854, 1867 1,068,901 76,840 

Nevada 1861, 1864 42,334 109,740 

New Hampshire. . . .One of the 13 states. 411,588 9,005 

New Jersey " 1,883,669 7,455 

New Mexico 1850 193,777 122,460 



460 APPENDIX C. 

New York One of the 13 states. 7,268,009 47,620 

North Carolina " 1,891,992 48,580 

North Dakota 1861,1889 319.040 70,195 

Ohio , 1802 4,157,545 40,760 

Oklahoma 1890 398,245 38,830 

Oregon 1848,1859 413,532 94.560 

Pennsylvania One of the 13 states. 6,301 ,365 44,985 

Rhode Island " 428,556 1,085 

South Carolina " 1,340.312 30.170 

South Dakota 1861, 1889 401,559 76,850 

Tennessee 1796 2,022,723 41,750 

Texas 1845 3,048,828 262,290 

Utah 1850,1896 276,565 82,190 

Vermont 1791 343.641 9,135 

Virginia One of the 13 states. 1,854,184 40,125 

Washington 1853, 1889 517,672 66,880 

West Virginia 1863 958,900 24,645 

Wisconsin 1836, 1848 2,068,963 54,455 

Wyoming 1868, 1890 92,581 97,570 

To the above are to be added ; 

Indian Territory (organised in 1834) and Indian Reserva- 
tions with a population of 537,242. 

Hawaii — Annexed in 1898 ; area, 6,740 sq. miles ; popula- 
tion (1900), 154,001. 

Porto Rico — Ceded in 1898 ; area, 3,668 sq. miles ; popula- 
tion, 900,000 (about). 

Philippines— Ceded in 1898 ; area, 120,000 sq. miles ; popu- 
lation, 8,000,000 (about). 

Guam (in the Ladrones) — Ceded in 1898 ; population about 
9,000. 



INDEX. 



Abolitionists, 171-175, 217, 220-221, 243. 

Adams, Henry, quoted, 44 note. 

Adams, Prof. Heury C, 80. 

Adams, President John, 3, 10, 14, 15, 
19, 31, 22, 30, 59, 125. 

Adams, President John Quincy, 15 
note, 70, 72, 75, 88, 95 ; candidacy 
for Presidency, 108, 116-117 ; on 
Monroe Doctrine, 114; chosen 
President, 118; selects Clay as 
Secretary of State, 118 ; his admin- 
istration, 119-132 ; on Internal 
Improvements, 120 ; favours Pa- 
nama Congress, 121-122; trouble 
with Georgia, 122-135 ; loses West 
Indian trade, 126 ; defeated in 
1828, 130-131 ; defends right of 
petition, 174-175, 195, 203 ; quiets 
House of Representatives, 184 ; 
death, 216 ; referred to, 303. 

Alabama Claims, The, 300 note, 333. 

Alaska, Purchase of (1867), 332-333. 

Alger, Gen. R. A., 410. 

Alien and Sedition Laws, 10, 13, 19, 40. 

Alliance, The Holy, 111-114. 

Altgeld, J. P., 381. 

Amendments to Constitution — Xllth, 
38; Xlllth, 303-304, 318; XlVth, 
320 note, 322-324, 327 ; XVth, 327. 

American Colonisation Society, 105. 

American Protective Association, 399 
note. 

Anarchists, The Chicago, 380-881. 

Anderson, John, Bribery case of, 92. 

Anderson, Major Robert, 273-273, 295. 

Andrew, Gov. John A., 295. 

Anti-Masons, The, 105, 175. 

Anti-rent agitation in New York, 202. 

Antietam, Battle of (1863), 803. 

Armstrong, Secretary John, 71,73. 

Appomattox, Surrender at(1865), 309. 

Arbuthnot and Ambrister, Case of, 
94-95. 

Arthur, President Chester A., 302; 
succeeds Garfield, 366 ; his admin- 
istration, 368-372 ; increases navy, 
369 ; fails of renomination, 372. 

Ashburton Treaty, The (1842;, 194. 

Atlantic Cable, The, 261, 890. 

B. 
Babcock, Gen. O. E., 337, 346. 



Baltimore, Mob in (1861), 295. 

Bancroft, George, 205. 

Bank, The National— Hamilton's not 
rechartered (1811), 64; second 
bank chartered, 82-83 ; bad man- 
agement of, 105-106 ; Jackson's 
fight against, 162-164, 165-169 ; its 
decrepitude, 183 ; Clay's strugglti 
to re-establish, 191-193 ; national 
banking system established ( 186:! i , 
312. 

Barbary States, War with (1801-5), 
23-24, 42, 67 ; war threatened 
(1815), 84. 

Barb6-Marbois, 34. 

Bayard, James A., 12, 27, 66, 72. 

Bayard, Thomas F., 363, 376. 

Beauregard. Gen. G. P., 215, 297. 

Bell, John, 269-270. 

Belknap, W. W., 337. 

Benton, Thomas H., 142, 156, 163, 167- 
168, 212, 250 note ; quoted, 66 note, 
97 note, 103 note, 105 note, 173 
note, 194 note, 206 note, 208 note. 

Behring Sea controversy, 888. 

Berlin Conference (1884), 368. 

Berlin Decree (1806), 51, 53, 63. 

Biddle, Nicholas, 1C3-164. 

Bladensburg, Battle of (1814), 73. 

Blaine, Jas. G., 347-348. 862,864, 370; 
nominated for Presidency and 
defeated, 372-375 ; refuses renomi- 
nation, 383 ; asSecretary of State, 
385, 386-388 ; quoted, 329. 

Blair Bill, The, 377, 382. 

Bland, Richard P., 358-359, 405. 

Blennerhassett, H., 47-48. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 9, 26, 82-36, 51- 
62, 69. 

Booth, John Wilkes, 313. 

Border States, The, in Civil War, 271 
note, 376-377, 295-296. 

Bragg, Gen. Braxton, 299, 305. 

Breckinridge, John C, 252, 268, 270. 

Brock, General Isaac, 67. 

Brooks, Preston S., 249. 

Brown, Gen. Jacob, 72. 

Brown, John, his " Raid " (1859), 265- 
267. 

Bryan, Wm. J., 405-406, 411, 413, 485. 

Buchanan. President James, 205, 206, 
210, 235, 244 ; nominated for Presi. 
dent, 255 ; elected, 2.53 ; his admin- 
istration, 256-277 ; attitude to- 
ward Kansas, 259-261 ; his foreign 

401 



462 



INDEX. 



policy, 2C5 ; attitude toward f.e- 

cedeil States, 27-4 ;.74. 
Buena Vista, Battle of (18-17), 213. 
Bluchard, Rev. Dr. S. D., ^74. 
Burns, Antliony, Case of (ia")4), SVi 

note, 2l;i-243. 
Burnside, Gen. A. E., 305, 812. 
Burr, Aaron, 10-12, 14, 30, 38, 41 ; his 

conspiracy and trial (1800-1807), 

47-49, 54. 
Butler, Oen. B. F., 308, 330. 
Butler, Senator A. P., 248. 

C. 

Ca))Ot, George, 78. 

Calhoun, John C, C5, 82,84, 122 ; his bill 
for Internal Improvements, S5-Sij ; 
in Cabinet, 88 ; quarrel with Jai^lc- 
Ron, 95, 1.")! ; candidacy for Pi-csi- 
dency, 108, 117 ; elected Vice-Presi- 
dent iu 1824 and 1828, 117, 130 : on 
tariff of 1838, 127, 129 ; inNulUfica- 
tion movement, 1.50-101 ; opposes 
abolitionists, 172-173 ; retires from 
Senate, 195 ; enters Tyler's Cabinet 
and negotiates annexation of 
Texas, 199, 2t13-204 ; negotiations 
as to Oregon, 203 ; on question of 
slavery and the Territories, 220- 
221 ; attitude toward Conipromi.se 
of 1850, 225-229 ; his death, 229. 

California, 112, 198,208, 210, 214, 21.5, 
222; Gold discovered in (1849), 
22:3-;>24 ; Kearneyism in, 370-371 ; 
Vigilance committees in, 387. 

Cameron, Simon, 894-295. 

Campbell's Report, 50. 

Canada, Invasions of in war of 1812, 
07 ; troubles with in 1£38, 183 ; 
fishery disputes with, 359. 

Canning, William, 52, 112, 114, 126. 

Caroline, Capture of the, 191 note. 

(-'ass, Lewis, 151, 217, 235, 241. 259, 273. 

Centennial Exposition (1870i, 349, 3.52. 

Cervera. Admiral, 409. 

Channing, Prof. Edward, quoted, 289- 
290. 

Charleston, Democratic Convention 
at (1800), 208 ; Earthquake at 
(1886), 881. 

Chase, Salmon P., 251, 269, 29-1. 

Chase, Justice Samuel, Impeach- 
ment of ( 1805), 37, 40-41, 47. 

Cheves, Langdon, 100. 

Chicago Fire (1871), 337. 

(.'hili. Trouble with (1891), 380. 

Chinese, Tyler's treaty with, 104; 
Legislation against, 300, 370-371 ; 
insurrection (1900), 413. 

Cities. See Urban Growth. 

Civil Rights Bill, The, 322. See 
Slaughter House Cases. 

Civil Service Reform, 314, 302 note, 
308, 377-378, 411-412. 

Clark, George Rogers, 99. 



Clay, Henry, 65, 70, 72. 75, 82, 84, 88, 
92, 105, 107, 114; seeiu-es second 
Blissouri Compromise, 102; can- 
didacy for Presidency in 1824, 
108-9, 110-117 ; becomes Secretary 
of State, 115, 119 ; duel with Ran- 
dolph, 122; supports Adams. 127, 
130; candidate for Presidency, 
1832,1.59 ; compromises with Xulii- 
flers, 100 ; fights for the Bank, 
163-104; not nominated in ;8.36, 
176; opposes Van Buren, 182: nf)t 
nominated in 1810, 185; opnositiou 
to Tyler, 190-193; retires from 
Senate, 194 ; nominated for Presi- 
dent and defeated, 1844, 20O-2O1 ; 
criticises Polk's administration, 
215 ; set aside in 1818, 217 ; secures 
Compromise of 18.50, 225-232 ; 
death in 18.52. 237. 

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, The (1850), 
230 note, 243, .372 note, 309, 412. 

Cleveland, President Grover, nomi- 
nated and elected, 373-S75 ; his 
first administration, 376-385; tariff 
mess.age, 382-383; renominated 
and defeated, 383-384 ; renomi- 
nated and elected, 392-393 ; second 
administration, 394-414 ; charac- 
ter as a statesman, 391-395; atti- 
tude toward Hawaiian revolution, 
395-397 ; toward Chicago strikers, 
400-401 ; his Venezuelan message, 
401-403; vetoes educational test 
for immigrants, 421 note ; 
quoted, 23. 

Clinton, De Witt, 69, 86. 

Clinton, George, 38, 55. 

Cobb, Hov.-ell, 220, 259, 273. 

Cockburn, Admiral, 72-73. 

Columbia (S. C), Burning of, 307. 

Columbian Exposition (1893), 391, 397. 

Compromise ot lfj50, 2:25, 231. 

Confederate States, Organisation of, 
274-275 ; Administration of, 310- 
311. 

Conkling, Roscoe, 362. 364. 

Constitution, fight with Guerrii>re 
(1812), 67-08. 

Cooper, James Fenimore, 8, 143. 

Covode Investigation, The, 267-208. 

Coxey's army, 400. 

Crawford, Wm. H., 81, 89, 95, 107 ; 
candidacy for Presidency, 109, 
110-117. 

Credit Mobilier, 336-337, 363. 

Crittenden, Senator, 295. 

Cuba, 234, 2-13, 244-245, 265 ; in Span- 
ish American War, 405-410, 412 ; 
present state of, 418. 

Cumberland Road. The, SO, 110. 

Curtis, Geo. W., 373. 

Curtis, .Tustice B. R., his opinion in 
Dred Scott Case, 257-258. 

Cushiug, Caleb, 23 1 -238. 

Custer, Gen. Geo. A., 352. 



INDEX. 



463 



Dallas, A. J., 74, 84. 

Davis, Jefferson, 41, 213, 219, 23.-., 268 ; 
as Socretai'v of War under Pierce, 
237-238, 241-242, 247, 255 ; made 
President of Confederate States, 
275 ; his administration, 294-215 ; 
difficulty of his task, 810-311 ; 
treatment of after the war, 326, 
342. 

Debt, Imprisonment for, 28-29. 

Decatur, Stephen, 42, 68, 84. 

Democratic Party, Formation of, 130- 
131. 

Detroit, Surrender of, 07 ; retaken, 71. 

Dewey, Admiral George, 408-409 ; 414, 

Dix, John A., 274. 

Dorr's Rebellion (1842), 202. 

Douglas, Stephen A., pushes througrh 
Kansas-Nebraska legislation, 2-39- 
243 ; candidate for Presidential 
nomination in IS.'G. 252 ; debates 
with Lincoln, 2G2-265 ; nomination 
in 1860, 268, 270. 

Dred Scott Case, The (decided 1857), 
256-259. 

Duane, Wm. J., 106-167. 

D\iuning, Prof. Wm. A., 831 note. 

E. 

Eads, Capt. Jas. B., his jetties (1879), 

362. 
Eaton, John H. and wife, 150-151. 
Eaton, Gen. Wm., 42. 
Edmunds, G. F., 362, 372, 391 note. 
Education in 1801, 7 ; in 18S0, 141-142 ; 

in 1896, 428. 
Election frauds of 1888, 383-384. 
Electoral Commission of 1876, 350- 

351. 
Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 

303. 
Embargo, Jefferson's (1808), 54-58. 
Emerscm, R. W., 143, 291, 432. 
Erie Canal, 86, 120. 
Erskine, D. M., British Envoy, 00-61. 
Evarts, Wm. M., 837, 359-360, 369. 
Everett, Edward, 269, 291. 



Farragut, Commodore David G., 298- 
299. 

Fillmore, President Millard, 217 ; 
succeeds Taylor, 230 ; not i-e- 
nominated in 1852, 236 ; nominated 
by Know-Nothings, 251. 

Fisk, " Jim," 336. 

Florida, Jefferson tries to acquire, 
45 ; Madison seizes West Florida 
(1811), 03 : troubles in under 
Monroe, 91 ; Jack.son in, 93 ; 
ceded by Spain (1819), 96-97 ; or- 
ganised as territory, 111. See 
Seminoles. 



Floyd, John B., 273. 

Foote, Senator S. A., his resolution, 
156. 

Foreigners in U. S., in 1801, 8-9 ; in 
18.30, 138 ; in 1830-1860, 283-285 ; 
1860-1900, 421-423. 

Fort Minis massacre (1813), 71. 

France, settles claims, 102, 17.5. See 
also Louisiana Purchase, Napo- 
leon, and Maximilian. 

Fredericksburg, Battle of (1802), 305. 

Freedman's Bureau, The, 322. 

Fremont, John C, 2,50, 253 ; his career, 
250, note, 313. 

Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, 231-234 ; 
242-243. 



G. 



Gadsden, Christopher, quoted, 15-16. 

Gadsden, James, liis "Purchase" 
(1853), 243. 

Gaines, General E. P., 9.3-94, 123. 

Gallatin, Albert, 22, 27, 39, 56, 60, 05, 
70. 79, 126. 

Garfield, President James A., 302-364; 
his administration, 364-306 ; as- 
sassination (1881 ), 306. 

Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, 171, 217, 243. 

Georgia, controversy over Yazoo 
Lands, 37, 39-40 ; troubles with 
Creeks and Cherokees, 122-125, 
153-154 ; convention of 1850, 235. 

Gerry, Elbridge, 69. 

Gettysburg, Battle of (1803), 305. 

Ghent, Treaty of (1814), 75. 

Giles, W. B., 27. 

Goebel, Wm., 41.3. 

Gold discovered in California ( 1849), 
223-224. 

Granger, Gideon, 39. 

Granger Party, The, 345, 379, 393. 

Grant, President (J. S., 15 note, 215, 
302 ; takes Fort Donelson, 208 ; 
takes Vicksburg (1803), 299 ; com- 
mands at Chattanooga, 305 ; made 
Lieutenant-general, 306 ; opposes 
Lee in Virginia, 307—308 ; receives 
Lee's surrender, 309 ; his char- 
acter, 309-310, .335, 337-338 ; atti- 
tude toward reconstructed South, 
327, 341-343 ; elected President, 333- 
334, re-elected, 343-344 ; Scandals 
under, .336-337 ; his San Domingo 
policy, 346-347 ; third term agita- 
tion, 347, 362, 304 ; death, 381. 

Great Britain, attitude toward U. S. 
prior to 1812, 42-47, 51-06 ; in war 
of 1812, 67-75 ; supports Monroe 
Doctrine, 112 ; denies U. S. West 
Indian trade, 126 ; grants it, 162 ; 
concludes Ashburton Treaty, 194 ; 
influence on Texas negotiations, 
199 ; concludes Oregon Treaty, 206- 
207 ; attitude in Civil AVar, 298 ; 
concludes treaty of Washington, 



464 



INDEX. 



34C ; withdraws her minister, 385 ; 
arbitrates Behring Sea dispute, 
SS^ ; attitude in Venezuelan con- 
troversy, 401-403 ; sympathy of 
in Spanish War, 408. 

Geeece, Revolt of, 114-115. 

Greelv Lt. A. W., 373. 

Greeley, Horace, 251, 277, 343. 

" Greenback " Party, The, 345, 358. 

Greytown, Bombardment of, 3Io-r344, 
234. 

Guadaloupe Hidalgo, Treaty of (1848), 
316. 

Guiteau, Charles J., 366. 

H. 

Halifax Fishery Commission, 359-300. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 12, 19, 32, 83, 38, 
47, 59, 64. 

Hampton Roads Conference 086"'), 
308 note. 

Hancock, Gen. W. S., 363-364. 

Hanna, Senator M. A., 404. 

Harrisburg Convention (1827), 127- 
128. 

Harrison, President Benjamin, nomi- 
nated and elected, 383-384 : his 
administration, 385-393 ; attitude 
toward Chili, 386 ; renominated 
and defeated, 392-393; attitude 
toward Hawaiian revolution, 395. 

Harrison, President Wm. Henry, 39, 
64, 70-71 ; candidate for Presidency 
in 1836, 176 ; wins in 1840, 184-186; 
death, 188. 

Hart, Prof. A. B., 286 note, 386 note. 

Hartford Convention (1814). 76-70. 

Hawaiian Islands, 223, 395-397. 

Hawthorne, Nath., 143, 291, 432. 

Hay, John, 412. 

Hayes, President R. B., 343, 348 ; elec- 
tion of disputed, 348-351 ; his 
character,356-357 ; his administra- 
tion, 356-362 ; his vetoes, 359, 360. 

Hayne, Robert Y., 121 ; debate with 
Webster, 156-158 ; as Governor of 
S C 159 

Hendricks, Thomas A., 848, 373, 378. 

Henry, John, disclosures of, 65. 

Hepburn vs. Griswold, 358. 

Hobart, Garrett A., 405, 413. 

Hobson, Lt. R. P., 409. 

Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 304, 305. 

Houston, Sam., 196, 198. 

Hull, Captain Isaac, 68. 

Hull, General, 89, 67. 

Hyalop, Prof. J. H., 439 note. 

I. 

Impressment, 43-44, 46, 51, 7.5. 
Independents in politics, 374-375, 405, 

413^14. 
Internal Improvements, 85-86, 110, 

180. 153. 



Interstate Commerce Act (1887), 379. 

Interstate migration, 435. 

Italian lynching in New Orleans (1891), 

386-387. 

J. 

Jackson, President Andrew, 15 note ; 
defeats Creeks, 73 ; wins Battle 
of New Orleans, 74-75 ; as Presi- 
dent, 88 ; in Florida, 9.3-95, 111 ; 
Sketch of, 95-96 ; candidacy for 
Presidency, 108, 117-118, 126-129 ; 
elected President in 1838, 130 ; his 
administrations, 146-178 ; attitude 
towards the Spoils System, 146- 
1.50; changes his cabinet, 151 ; 
attitude towards Georgia Indians, 
1.53-1.54 ; towards nnlliflcation, 
155-161 ; re-elected, 159 ; contest 
with Bank, 162-169 ; iiis specie 
circular, 170 ; close of his career, 
177-178, 183, 186 ; his efforts to get 
Texas, 196 ; referred to, 435. 

Jackson, James, British minister, 61. 

Jackson, Thomas J. (Stonewall), 215, 
296, 301, 303, 304. 

James, .Tesse, 371. 

Japan, Treaty with (1852), 245. 

Jefferson, President Thomas, 8, 9, 10- 
60; his inauguration, 16-17; 
sketch of his early life, 18-19 ; his 
character, 19-21 ; his attitude to- 
ward the civil service, 21-23; his 
correspondence, 24-25 ; secures 
Louisiana, 30-37 ; tries to secure 
Florida, 45-46; conduct relative 
to Aaron Burr, 47-49 ; his struggle 
with Napoleon and Great Britain, 
51-58; estimate of his executive 
career, 58, 97, 98, 104, 111, 122 ; his 
death (1826), 125; referred to, 141, 
154. 168, 186, 211, 220, 435 ; quoted, 
5 note, 32, 53 note, 58 note, CO note, 
70 note, 81 note, 113 note, 163 note. 
167 note. 

Johnson, President Andrew, 15 note, 
41, 313 ; takes up Lincoln's work, 
317 ; sketch of, 317 ; opposes Con- 
gress, 323-329 ; impeachment of, 
3:^0-331 ; close of his career, 333 
note ; quoted, 318 note. 

Johnson, Richard M., elected Vice- 
President, 176. 

Johnston, Geo. A. S., 261, 298. 

Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., 297, 301, 
806-307. 

Johnstown floods (1889), 392. 

Judiciary, The Federal, Reduction of 
in 1801, 26-27,40. 



K. 



Kansas, Conflict in, 240-249, 253, 259- 

261, 265, 277. 
Kansas-Nebraska Legislation (1854), 

239-242, 245. 



INDEX. 



465 



Kearney, Dennis, 370-371. 
Kearsarge destroys the Alabama 

(1864), 300 note. 
Kendall, Amos, 15-i, 173. 
Kentucky, disputed election of 1900, 

413 ; Resolutions (see Virginia 

and Kentucky Resolutions). 
Kin^, Rut'us, 38, .55, 85. 
Kno\y-Nothings, The, 245-346, 349-;359, 

351, 252. 
Kossuth, Louis, 234. 
Koszta, Martin, Case of, 238. 
Ku Klux Klan, 328, 341. 



L. 



Lafayette, visit of (1824), 116. 

Laughliu, Prof. J. L., quoted, 393 
note. 

Lecompton Constitution, the, 260-2G1. 

Lee, General Robert E., 215, 263, 293, 
296 ; takes charge in Virginia, 301 ; 
invades Maryland, 302-303 ; de- 
feated at Gettysburg, .304; opposes 
Grant in Virginia, 306, 307-303 ; 
his character, 309-310, 319, 335. 

Leopard-Chesapeake incident (1807), 
52-53. 

Lewis, Capt. Merriwether, his ex- 
pedition with Clark (1804-1805), 36. 

Lexow Committee, the, 403-404. 

Lincoln, President Abraham, 216 ; 
debates with Douglass (1858), 202- 
265 ; sketch of, 263-264 ; nominated 
for President, 269-270 ; his ad- 
ministrations, 294-315; issues 
Emancipation Proclamation, 304 ; 
his character, 310 ; assailed by 
faction, 312 ; re-elected, 313 ; as- 
sassinated, 314 ; his plan of Re- 
construction, 316-317. 

Literature in 1830, 143 ; in 1860, 291 ; 
in 1900, 433. 

Livingston, Edward, 151. 

Livingston, R. R., 24, 31, 32-33. 

Loco-focos, 180. 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, his hill. 339-390. 

Longfellow, H. W., 143, 291, 433. 

Lookout 3Iouutain, Battle of (1863), 
305. 

Lopez, Narciso, 234. 

Louisiana, Admission of (1812), 63. 

Louisiana Lottery suppressed (1S93), 
391. 

Louisiana Purchase, The (1803), 30-37, 
97. 

Love joy, E. P., 171 note. 

Lowell, James Russell, 211, 291, 432. 

Lundy's Lane, Battle of (1814), 72. 

M. 

McClellan, Gen. George B., 215, 296, 

301-304, 307, 313. 
Macdonough, Commodore Thomas, 

73. 



McKinley, President William, 308, 
393 ; his tariff bill, 350 : nominated 
and elected, 404-406 ; his adminis- 
tration, 406 ; altitude toward 
Spain, 406-407 ; his expansion 
policy, 411 ; his improvement in 
statesmanship, 412. 

McLean, John, 119. 

JIcMaster, Prof. J. B., 140, 290. 

Slacon, Nathaniel, 85 ; his Bills, 63. 

Madison, President James, 33, .39, 47, 

55, 56 ; his character, 59-60 ; his 
administrations, 60-80; forced into 
war, 65-66 ; re-elected, 69 ; on In- 
ternal Imi>rovements, 83, 85 ; sur- 
vives Jefferson, 125, 220. 

Mahone, Wm., 371. 

Maine, Admission of, 101. 

Maine, Explosion of the (1898), 400- 
407. 

Manassas, First battle of (1861), 297. 

Manassas, Second battle of (1863), 303. 

Manila, Battle of (1898), 408-409. 

Marbury vs. Madison, 31. 

Marcy, Wm. L., 149 note, 205, 237-238, 
354. 

Marshall, Chief-Justice John, 14, 21 ; 
in Burr trial, 48-49 ; in the case of 
the Georgia Indians, 125, 153-154 ; 
his career, 154-155. 

Mason, John Y., 205 note, 244. 

Maximilian in Mexico, 333. 

Meade, Gen. George G., 304. 

Mexico, opposes acquisition of Texas, 
196-199, 203-204 ; war with U. S. 
(1846-1848), 207-315; Gadsden Pur- 
chase from, 243 ; Maximilian in, 
333. 

Milan Decree, 54, 62. 

Miles, Gen. N. A., 410. 

Missouri Compromises, The (1820-31), 
100-105, 211, 219-220; Repeal of 
(1854), 239-242. 

" MoUv McGuires," The, 361. 

Monitor, fight with the Virginia (1862), 
300. 

Monioa, President James, 33, 47,51, 

56, 64, 66 note, 73, g'i ; elected Presi- 
dent, 84-83 ; his administrations, 
87-118; protects Jackson, 95; 
secures Florida, 96-97 ; re-elected, 
107 ; on Internal Improvements, 
110 : promulgates his " doctrine," 
111-114 ; closes his career, 118. 

Morgan, Wm., 1G5. 

Mormons, The, 223-235, 261, 372, 391 

note. 
Morris, Gouverneur, 27, .33. 
Morton, Gov. Oliver P., 295 note, aiS. 
Mulhall, M. G., quoted, 428-429. 

N. 

Napoleon III. See Maximilian. 
Nashville, Battle of (1855), 306. 
Nashville Convention, The (1850), 227. 



30 



4:66 



INDEX. 



Negroes in South, 423-425. See 

Slavery. 
New Orleans, Battle of (]815), 74-75 ; 

Lynchiugs in, S28, 386-38«, 413. See 

Louisiana Purchase. 
Non-Intercourse Act, 57-58, 60, 63. 
Noyes, A. D., quoted, 357 note. 
Nullification in S. C. (1832), 129, 155- 

ICl. 

O. 

Oklahoma, Territory, Opening of, 

391-392. 
Orders in Council, 54, 57, 60, 62, 66. 
Oregon region, 97, 200 ; Treaty with 

Great Britain concerning (1840), 

206-207. 
Osceola, 183. 
Ostend Manifesto, The (1854), 244-245, 

251. 

P. 

Pacific Railways. 311, 336. 

Packenham, Sir Edward, 74-75. 

Panama Congress, The (1826), 114, 
121-123. 

Pan-American Congress (1889), 885. 

Panic of 1818-19, 105 ; of 1837, 179-180 ; 
of 1857-8, 202 ; of 18C9, 330 ; of 1873, 
337 ; of 1893, 397-398. 

Paris, Treaty of (1898), 411. 

Parkhurst, Rev. C. H., 404. 

Party government in the U. S., 853- 
356, 438-440. 

Pension legislation, 376-377, 390. 

Perry, Commodore M. C, his expedi- 
tion to Japan (1852), 245. 

Perry, Capt. Oliver H., 71. 

Petersburg, Siege of (1864-1865), 308. 

Philippines, Revolt in (1899-1900), 411, 
413. 

Pickering, Timothy, 55, 78. 

Pierce, President Franklin, nominated 
and elected in 1852, 235-237 ; his 
administration, 237-255 ; part in 
Kansas-Nebraska legislation, 241- 
242 ; attitude toward Kansas, 249 ; 
not renominated, 252 ; close of his 
career, 255. 

Pike. Lt. Z. M., his expedition (1805), 
36 note. 

Pinckney, C. C, 33, 38, 55. 

Pinckney, H. L., 174. 

Pinkney, William, 51. 

Pitt, William, 43. 

Piatt, Thomas C, 365. 

Poe, E. A., 143, 293, 432. 

Polk, President James K., nominated 
for President and elected (1814), 
200-201 ; his administration, 205- 
220 : negotiates Oregon Treaty, 
20C-207 ; conduct of Mexican War, 
207-215; attitude with regard to 
conquered territory, 319. 

Pope, General John, 298, 302. 

Populist Party, the, 393, 405, 414. 



Porto Rico, 410, 413. 

Presidential Succession, Act deter- 
mining, 367. 

Princeton, Accident on the, 198. 

Privateering, U. S. refuse to abandon, 
254. 

Proctor, Col. H. A., 71. 

Prohibition, Maine law (1851), 141, 
213. 

Protection, 81-82, 127-150. See Tariff. 



Quincy, Josiah, quoted, 63. 
Quitman, Jolm A., 234-235. 



R. 



Rambouillet Decree, 62. 

Randolph John [of Roanoke], 27, 33, 
39-41, 45-46, 05. 84, 80, 102, 105, 114- 
115, 122, 129-130. 162, 219. 

Reconstruction, Lincoln's plan of, 
316-317 ; discussion of Congress- 
ional plan of, 319-320 ; theories 
of, 321; acts of 1867, S25; effects 
in South, 325-328 ; 341-343. 

Reed, Thomas B.. his "rules," 388- 
389 ; candidate for presidential 
nomination, 392, 404. 

Reeder, Andrew H., 247. 

Republican Party, organised (1856), 
250. 

Resumption of Specie Payments 
(1879), 345, 357. 

Returning Boards, 342, 349. 

Roberts, B. H., Expulsicn of, 413. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 8, note 413, 
quoted 73 note, 99 note. 

Rush, Richard, 112, 119, ISO. 

Russia, mediates in war of 1812, 70 ; 
has designs on California, 112; 
cedes Alaska, 333. 

S. 

Sackville-AVest, Sir Lionel, 384-365. 

Samoan Islands, 412. 

Sampson, Rear-Admiral W. T., 409. 

San Domingo, Grant's policy towards, 
346-347. 

San Jacinto, Battle of (1836), 196-197. 

Santa Anna, 190, 109, 210-21,5. 

Santiago,Battle of (1898),409 ; Capture 
of, 409-410. 

Savannah captured by Sherman 
(1864), 300. 

Schley, Rear-Admiral W. S., 409. 

Schouler, James, 97, 194 uote, 224. 

Schurz, Carl, 343, 357. 

Scott, Gen. AVinfleld, 183 ; in Mexican 
War, 212-215 ; not nominated in 
1818, 217 ; defeated for Presidency 
in 1852, 236-237 ; at beginning of 
civil war, 274 ; referred to, 410. 

Secession, South resolves on, 270-27", 



INDEX. 



467 



Seminoles, 93 ; Cliief war with (1834- 
1812), 153-154, 378. 

Seninies, Capt. Raphael, 300 note. 

Ssveu Fines, Battle of USC2), 301. 

Seward, Wm. H., S22, 53S), 242 ; fails of 
nomination, 269-270 ; as Secretary 
of State, 2'J4, 308 note, 317; protests 
against French in Mexico, 333 ; 
secures Alaska, 332-333. 

Seyiuour, Horatio, 333-334. 

Shatter, Gen. W. R., 410. 

Sherman, John, 345, 357, 363, 383 ; his 
Act, 390, 398. 

Sherman, Gen. Wm. T., 308, 305, 306- 
807, 338 

Shiloh, Battle of (1803), 298. 

Silver, Legislation about, 357-359, 381- 
383, 390-3;)l ; free silver campaign 
of 1896, 404-406 ; of 1900, 413-414. 

Slaughter House Cases, The, 342. 

Slavery, in 1801, 4 ; foreign slave 
trade prohibited (1808), 49-50, 88 ; 
in 1820, 98-99 ; in tlie Territories, 
215-216, 219-220, 257-259; in 1860, 
285-386. 

Slidell, John, 308, 298. 

Smith, Prof. Goldwin, quoted, 59, 87. 

Smith, Joseph, 224-225, 388. 

Smith, Robei-t, 60, 64. 

Soule, Pierre, 244. 

Specie Circular, The, 170, 180, 183. 

Spain, cedes Louisiana to Franco, 30 ; 
her attitude toward the U. S., 
31-35, 45-46 ; her revolted colonies, 
91-92; sells Florida, 96-97; rela- 
tions with Holy Alliance, 111-112; 
clings to Cuba, 211-245 ; 347 ; War 
witla, 400-411. 

Spencer, John C, 105. 

Spoils System, The, 147-1,50. 

Squatter Sovereignty, 217, 339. See 
Cass and Douglas. 

Stanton, Edwin M., 374, 395, 330-331. 

Star of the West fired on (1861), 273. 

Star Route Frauds, .368. 

Stephens, A. H., 236, 375, 305 note, 
303 note. 

Stevens, Thaddeus, 297 note, 313, 321, 
334. 

Stevenson, A. E., 393, 413. 

Stowe, Mrs. H. B., 201. 

Strikes of 1877, 361 ; of 1886, 380; of 
1803, 391 : of 1894 (Chicago), 400- 
401 ; of 1900, 413. 

Sub-treasury system, 180-181 

Sumner, Charles, 242; attacked by 
Brooks, 218-249; on Reconstruc- 
tion, 319, 343, 346-347. 

Sumter, Fort, 272-273, 295 



Tallmadge, James, 100, 104. 
Tammany Hall. 339, .381, 403 
Tanev, Roger B., 151, 256-3.59. 
Tariff of 1816, 83-84 ; tariff movement 



of 1820, 115-116 ; tariff of 1828, 127- 
129 ; tariff of 1833, p. 160 ; tariff of 
1842, 193 ; tariff of 1846, 307 ; tariff 
of 1857, 254 ; of 1863, 311 ; Mills Bill, 
the, 383-383; McKinley Bill, the, 
390 ; Wilson Bill, the, 399-400 ; 
Dingley Bill, the, 400, 406. 

Taussig, Prof. F. W., 83, 115. 

Taylor, John (of Caroline) 129. 

Taylor President Zachary — in Mexi- 
can war, 208-315 ; elected Presi- 
dent, 217-218 ; his administration, 
222-228; attitude toward Com- 
promise of 1850, 235-230 ; death, 
230. 

Tecumseh, 64, 71. 

Tenure of Office Act, 324, 330-331, 344, 
377. 

Texas — U. S. claims to, 97 ; schemes 
to acquire, 195-199 ; annexation 
of, 303-204 ; claims against New 
IMexico, 22G-227, 230-232. 

Thayer, Eli, 246-247. 

Thomas, Gen. George H., 299 note, 
305, 306. 

Thomas, Senator J. B., 101. 

Thompson, Jacob, 373-274. 

Tilden, Samuel J., 348-351, 863, 373. 

Tippecanoe, Battle of (1811), 64, 176. 

Tompkins, Daniel, 85, 107. 

Toombs, Robt., S36. 

Trent, Case of the steamer, 298, 833. 

Troup, Governor, 123-124. 

Turner, Prof. F. J., quoted, 425 note. 

Tweed, Wm. M., 838-341. 

Tyler, President John, 105 ; elected 
Vice President in 1840, 185-186; 
becomes President, 188 ; his ad- 
ministration, 188-204 ; his vetoes, 
191-193; schemes to get Texas, 195- 
199 ; withdraws from presidential 
contest, 201 ; presides over Peace 
Convention, 276 ; quoted, 183 note. 
U. 

United States, The, area and popula- 
tion in 1801, 1-2 ; cliaracteristics 
of people in 1801,4-9; area and 
population 1810-1830, 133-137; 
characteristics of people in 1830, 
137-145; area and population, 1840- 
1860, 278-283 ; character of people 
in 1860, 286-288 ; area and popula- 
tion 1870-1890, 415-420; character 
and occupations of people in 1890, 
436-433. 

ITpshur, Abel P., 195, 198. 

Urban growth in 1801, 5 ; in 1810-1830, 
134-135; in 1810, 280; in 1850, 282 ; 
in 1860, 383 ; in 1870, 416-417 ; in 
1880, 417-418 ; in 1890, 430-431. 



Vallandigham, C. L., 318. 



468 



INDEX. 



Van Buren, President Martin, 127, 150, 
151, lt)5 ; elected Vice-President, 
159; elected President, 183fj, iru ; 
relations witli Jacicson, 177-178, 
his character, 178-179, confronts 
financial situation, 179-182; diiift- 
culties of his administration, 183- 
184 ; defeated in 1840, 184-18(5 ; at- 
titude toward Texas, 197, 200; 
fails of nomination in 1844, 200 ; 
nominated by Free Soilers, 218. 

Venezuelan Message, The (1895), 401- 
403. 

Vicksburg, Siege of (1863) 299. 

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, 
19, 76, 129, 156. 

Virginia Presidents, The, 87-88. 

W. 

"Walker, Robert J., 205, 259-260. 
Walker, William, 243, 253-254. 
Washington, President George, 3, 9, 

11, 12, 15, 19, 21, 23, 28, 58. 87, 89 ; 

compared with Lincoln, 264. 
W^ashington, Treaty of (1871), 333, 346, 

859. 
Washington City, Capture of in 1814, 

73. 
War of 1812, 66-75 ; Results of, 76-82 ; 

War, Civil (1861-1865), 294-315; 

War, Spanish-American (1898), 

407-112. See also Barbary States, 

Mexico, and Seminoles. 



Webster, Daniel, 82, 84, 114-115, 125; 
debate with Hayne, 156-158, op- 
poses Van Buren, 182 ; in Harri- 
son's Cabinet, 188 ; in Tyler's, 192 ; 
negotiates Asliburton Treaty, 194 ; 
not nominated for President in 
1848, 217; attitude towai'd Com- 
promise of 1850, 225-232 ; Secretary 
of State under Fillmore, 2;W ; in 
campaign of 1852, 236-237 ; his 
death, 237. 

Weed, Thurlow, 251. 

West Indies, British, Trade rights to, 
lost, 126 ; regained, 162. 

West Virginia, cixt off from Virginia 
(1863), 296-297. 

Whig Party, formation of, 131, 17.5. 

Whittier, J. G., 143, 228. 

Wilmot Proviso, the, 211, 215-216, 220- 
221, 240. 

Wilkinson, General James, 47^18, 71. 

Wilson, W. L., 399. 

Wilson, Prof. Woodrow, quoted, 246, 
250. 

Windom, Wm., 865, 390. 

Wirt, William, 89, 119, 165. 

Wise, Henry A., 192, 198-199. 



Yazoo Lands, the 37, 89-40. 
Young, Brigham, 835, 261. 






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